I Lost My Words

Last week I lost my words. 

For a whole week I couldn't write. I tried a few times and sat in front of a blank screen and...nothing. The words wouldn't come. So I stopped trying. I knew why. 

Father's Day. 

It's a day I have dreaded for the last 17 years and has been complicated for so many more than that. Every one of these 17 years my father has chosen to not be a part of my life. 

You would think that maybe after a few of those years it would get easier. But it doesn't. I mourn each year. For a father not passed but missing from my life just the same. The mourning period begins the same time every year. When the commercials begin to appear on TV. You know the ones. About the superhero dads without the capes. About the dads pushing the bikes without the training wheels. About that same time the cards appear in the stores. The ones that thank the dads for always being there. The ones that talk about unconditional love. 

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Then the actual day comes. And I am caught between celebrating with all those I love who have such wonderful fathers and the unbearable ache within my heart because that space is empty in my life. I hurt for my friends who have lost their fathers to death and wonder would it be easier for me then. Because if my father was dead at least it wouldn't be by his choice that we were separated like we are now. And then the guilt waves over me as I actually thought of him and death in the same sentence. 
I am horrible. 
Father's Day sucks.

There is no ease in this day at all. It is the one day I go over in great detail every conversation...every action...looking for the great offense I have committed that would cause my father to fall out of love with his daughter. 

me. 

Throughout the day I have to put the mask on to hide the immense pain. I struggle to hold in the tears on the way to church and almost break down when my friend asks how I am. 

Inside my head I repeat over and over...hold it together. Hold. It. Together. Smile a little bigger so no one knows. I release just a few of the tears on the way home. Only a few. I am too afraid to let more escape as I might fall apart. 

I. Can't. Fall. Apart.

I have dinner with my guys. Laugh a little. Smile's still there. Then D hugs me. In that one moment it all falls away and I can't find that damn mask and the smile just won't come. And I want to punch something. Anything rather than cry. And I break. Feeling like pieces of me fall all over the floor of the bathroom where D has unlocked the floodgates with one touch. Everything that I have been holding back for a whole week. Or maybe the whole year. I don't know. I am blinded by the tears and the words are all jumbled together. Weeping. And I think I won't be able to stop. Ever. Broken.

And in my heart I know all the things that everyone always says to me. That I am loved by my heavenly Father. That I deserve love. And so on. And most of the time there is peace in that. And I am secure in that. 

Except on Father's Day.

On this day more than any other day I just wish he'd love me again.

It's not that day anymore.

So I decided to try to write through the tears. 

And I found my words again.
They aren't pretty.
They are raw and real.
They are mine.

Miss you daddy.

Blessings,