In the beginning of this month I started to feel a lightness in myself that I don’t know if I’ve ever felt before. A freedom just to BE, without family secrets and shadows, what can I become? I thought “I’m crawling out of the darkness at last!” and the psychic weight was lifting. And it WAS. IS. But also, the grief of losing the last scrap of that childhood wish to have a dad – that’s also real. And though it’s strange to be grieving an unfulfilled childish need that I’ve somehow held onto all the way up until I turned 55, it’s still grief. Grief doesn’t behave in a linear or logical way. The pain of being formally rejected – AGAIN – is also very hard to navigate. On the one hand, it’s the same same same as all three of my parents have always done from the beginning – rejecting me as their responsibility. I think the final rejection is the hardest because a treasured illusion is now destroyed.

And it needed to be destroyed in order for me to move forward with my life. What have I got left? Maybe 20 years, if I’m very very lucky? I wish I’d been strong enough to finish this off when I was 21, the first time I tried to slay the family silence and start living only with the reality of what was left for me. So that’s something I have to grieve as well – all the years I lost to trying to build something I knew was being built all on my side. All this energy I put into building healthier relationships with my mom and step dad were wasted on them. They had a finite amount to give me and it was never going to be different. But I have been stubborn in desiring something better and more from each of them they they had to give. I thought if I was “good enough” or “selfless enough” that they would see my value and love me as much as Tara, and maybe as much as mom also loved Zeke.

It’s almost been four years since I stopped gave up the illusion that I had a mother and now the illusion of having a dad is gone too.

What I’m trying to say to myself, here, is that cutting the illusion down and composting it is the healthiest and most positive act of self care I’ve ever done for myself in my entire life. And even so – it’s a process that involves grieving and a bucket of other emotions. So when I got really emotional the last two days and wondered where the fuck it came from – I almost forgot what I’ve just been through. That’s it’s super fresh.

I need to remember to give myself space for this emotion to roll through unexpectedly. Because it WILL. There may also be waves of real sorrow. It’s all part of the process.

The most important thing is that I have freed myself from a trap I’ve been caught in my whole life.