Sizzle Says

There is probably a list of reasons why my Father was not a man of his word but the one that trumps them all was his alcoholism. I believe, despite his best intentions, he couldn’t be honest- with himself or with us. And he was sorry. He was so very sorry. I know that. But sorry doesn’t fix everything. It can’t repair the damage done to the trust of a child.

I realized just now as I broke down crying in the shower that I am still so sad about how my Dad let me down. And how it still breaks my heart how he let himself down most of all. Every time someone in my life lets me down, it is exacerbated by that old Dad wound that hasn’t yet healed. Every time I encounter a person who is lost inside themselves I see my Father and I want to help. This is not my duty and yet I have made it so much a part of who I am that it feels wrong to not give of myself in this way.

My father “hid the truth” a lot. He’d say he was going to AA meetings but instead he’d just have my Mom drop him off and then go do something else for an hour, telling her and us that he’d sat in that room and tried to heal. He’d say he wasn’t drinking but his behavior would be questionable. I used to scour the entire house looking for hidden bottles of booze and when I would find them I would be filled with a mix of righteousness and complete and total devastation.

You know that feeling when you discover something you suspected was true actually IS true? How it feels as if your heart just dropped out of your chest? You forget to breathe in that instant. The evidence of the deception is right there before your eyes and you are wishing with all your might that it isn’t true. (Please don’t be true. Please don’t be true.) But it’s right there. In front of your face. You know intrinsically that it will always feel different from this moment forward. I grieve for the loss of that trust knowing I can never get it back.

For the greater part of my growing up years, I devoted myself to being my father’s cheerleader. I wanted him to succeed. I believed in him with every bit of my naive child’s soul that he could and would get “better.” Each time he broke a promise. Each time he let me down. Each time he said he was sorry. . . a little piece of my former unflinching belief in him, flinched, and I grew more sad watching whatever trust we had between us fade away.

So when I find myself now, an adult who should probably be past all this, in a situation where all these feelings are resurfacing. Where I find myself crying out in dreams, “How could you?” I think to myself. . . There is still a lot of work to do. There is so much to unlearn. I haven’t come as far as I thought.

“I learned the hard way/That they all say things you want to hear/And my heavy heart sinks deep down under you and/Your twisted words,/Your help just hurts/You are not what I thought you were/Hello to high and dry. . .” -Love Song, Sara B.