When he criticized me for what I was eating or how much I was eating. The letters and texts and conversations about how I should be different, do different, be more like someone else. Or how about when I was just starting to get healthy again and he threw a fit about the cost of my medical care. How about the calls and texts my siblings get that I don't. Or the acknowledgement of their relationship with him and the effort they put in but me? Nothing. And never, never an apology for how these things have hurt me. No acknowledgement of guilt or fault or wrongdoing. These moments all combine to tell 1 story and that story's theme? I don't love you.
Now do I truly believe my Dad doesn't love me? No not really. I think he loves me as much as and in the way that he can, and that's just generally sh*tty. I also don't necessarily think his lack of love for me is unique. I'm also not convinced in the last decade or so that he loves my Mom.
I recently listened to a podcast where the host said: "I truly believe I am worthy of love and deserve to be surrounded in it everyday." Those words resonated with me. There are moments and because of recent events they have been more often than not. Where I do doubt or a wonder... if my own father doesn't love me who does? Who will? Am I even of value? Heck why keep living if the cost isn't valued by anyone else?
But deep down? I know. I deserve love. I am worthy of love. And thats the basis for my distance to my father. I will not surround myself in a lack of love. I deserve better than that. I am still kind and respectful to him. And truthfully I still love him and care about him. But my boundaries are to protect myself from more hurt, more doubt, more loss.
Moral of this story? I am worthy of love and so are you. I deserve to be surrounded by love and so do you. My life deserves to be filled with love and so does yours.
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