Daddy Issues- Chapter 1: Second Chance
Daddy Issues
Chapter 1:
Second Chance
All my life, I felt trained to be overly forgiving of toxic people: to have an overwhelming compassion towards their malicious actions because their intentions were much more banal like, a serial killer that did not mean to stab too hard. Trained to believe that my tenderness was to be given, at all times, to all, in every occasion, because to not take the higher ground meant I spiritually failed. This made my relationship with anger feel …..strange. Thus, when I met my dad/ first trainer for the 50th millionth ¨Second Chance,¨ I had given him since my birth, I had no idea that it would be so life-changing in that it was not at all.
Sometimes, I ask myself why I have met so many assholes. Bosses…. Family…Friends,… I could not catch a break. Usually, you think it is either you are weak or an asshole yourself. Yet, I aim to bring more nuance to this dichotomy in that if you are an asshole towards yourself, you attract the ones that will be right there to join you. I had not spoken to my dad in 10 years. Throughout my childhood, he was a cruel addict, who found God, and made Jesus his new dealer. Amazing, how so many addicts find religion as if the Holy Cross is just a spiritual form of crack. My disappointment with his religious sobering is that it only revealed, moreso, it was not the drugs that made him horrible….. it really was him.
My parents had a bag full of traumas, and they shaped them into believing they could be caused pain by anyone, but not, actually, be the cause of pain to anyone or rather me. I was held to a standard of their own painful childhoods, which meant I never got the unconditional love you see middle-class, white families have in 80s sitcoms. Instead, I was born to earn my parents´ trust and love: to prove via performance, presence, and personality that I was a good kid that knew to honor them. The problem is I did not always feel honored or honorable or even human, especially in their eyes. In fact, I felt disgraced by my dad.
As I picked my outfit for the long-awaited reunion, I questioned my decision, and felt a gnawing dread that I was falling into a behavior I would replicate so often: the forgiver who never gets forgiven. I contemplated wearing a hoe outfit, and just acting like the streets hit me hard since his absence. I also contemplated a formal outfit like, the suits hit me hard since his absence. Instead, I settled for a tulip sweater and some ripped jeans because nothing says ¨Come Back To My Life¨ like garden patterning. Yet, the over-contemplation was really a delay to check on my heart.
My decision to call my dad came after years of Tia Guilt that, in perspective, feels foolish. I know see the harshness I faced in their criticisms came from roots beyond my birth. These were women who were strong, fierce Latinas that never truly confronted their biggest weakness: their own husbands. My uncles, at best, could be good fathers, but ask me to marry one of their asses, and I would search nun-residencies like one does over-priced homes on Zillow. Their anxiety and harshness towards themselves were 100% passed down to their daughters, and I felt like I carried feelings of debt and guilt that were not mine, especially when I was known as the ¨sweet one.¨
Latino families are notoriously loyal. Sometimes, I wonder if it is a communal sub-conscious aimed at survival: you cannot erase or extinct a community that refuses to be torn apart, even if that means some of its wiser members are going to have to forgive the stupid ones. Born an ¨old soul,¨ I would be praised for my kind demeanor and mature mind, but, like whiplash, to speak my truth or say no was to be quickly escorted back into the kids table. That energy of my personal decisiveness meaning their dismissal would trickle into so many romances where I was mute: never saying my anger because a good girl upset is just not likable, and that was my big frustration. Was I doing this to be liked and give more peace to the women of my family? To my dad? Or did I really need some closure as they claimed?
Taking the train, I got my typical, stomach ache, which meant my solar plexus was clogged like a toilet for the 18th time in 3 days. Yes, I am a walking crystal shop with, at least, 4 astrology apps. I always laugh at those who say ¨girlies with daddy issues¨ love astrology because, oddly, I think it is hilariously true. Yet, I am here to bring nuance, and a therapist once explained to me why. She said that those who, often, feel invisible to their parents or have narcissistic ones, often find relief in horoscopes and natal charts because they give them the visibility and encouragement they did not get as kids. The thought hit me like a bell, and made the notion of stars actually seeing me for who I am feel even more beautiful.
My mom could be strict and not exactly cuddly. As her only child, in a big family, I felt like her partner: the only one that would choose her in a room filled with people that would choose someone else or, really, themselves. Yet, she would pick everyone, except us. I think she thought she picked us because she is a warrior incarnate, but if you never really know what war you are fighting…..your strength can feel heavy. Nobody picked her but me, and that gave her strength but it, eventually, became common. I was an automatic amidst others chaos like, my dad.
It is amazing the things that pop into your head as you sit and watch different people sit on the orange seat of the New York City B. Were they all going to make big choices and open doors to old personalities like me? Was I? I have both seen and been the girl that cries on the train: overwhelmed by a feeling that her life is not the one she is supposed to be living, and yet tomorrow she will wake up to it again. We all ignore her or get ignored because we just feel too tired to add others´ problem to our own, and admire our jadedness as resilience: we may want to cry but we don’t. I guess that is strength… I guess.
I knew my mother loved me, but her love would not be full until she loved herself, and I said that from personal experience, as well. Heading out the train amidst a mass rush to exit: as if a sudden fire had lit us towards panic, the stomach ache grew. I was making a mistake. I knew it. I was going to have to do the typical ¨forget about the past,¨ and be told this advice by people that hold grudges for everything. Irony is not small my friends. Yet, the real irony was that in being forced to be so aware of everybody’s feelings, I felt so disconnected mine. I had to be hyper-alert of everyone’s triggers, while not having my own, and the stomach aches were not, by chance, coming when heartbreak was abound.
We had decided to meet in 787 Coffee in the Lower East Side. A Proud Puerto Rican run cafe, the Coquito Latte makes me want to wave my flag with pride and scream ¨FREE PUERTO RICO.¨ My dad loved being Puerto Rican and I did, too. He was smart, political, and knew more about world history than the world itself. Honestly, I would not be surprised to know he interviewed Moses just to get a more detailed recap on that whole Red Sea parting ordeal. Yet, that was what so perplexing about him: for someone so progressive and liberal, he could be so narrow in heart and mind.
I always compared my dad to my Trump supporting aunt because I found their juxtaposition fascinating. My Tia was the sweetest person you can meet to believe your actually a lizard running a human trafficking ring under a pizza hut. She was filled with good feelings and poor thoughts…. Suspicious of all, voting against all, but would be the first person to hold your hand for any and every need or want. Meanwhile, my dad believed in all and would leave you in need and want. Their disconnection between their mind and heart taught me just how important balancing and bridging the both are to your peace and the peace you bring. It also taught me that trauma makes you a hypocrite.
Every victimizer was a victim first: learning in both execution and excuse how to enact their pain unto others. Even Ted Bundy was sexually abused. I say this, because I know I have not hurt people, but I’ve never lived as unhurt person, and I was reaching a point in my life where I had to decide: heal and do better or sink and become one of the assholes. These were the type of thought that sat on my brain like an elephant as let my mind wander to all the doors its shuts so that my heart won’t be deemed ¨too sensitive¨ by the numb.
From financially to mentally and verbally abusive, my father had permanently marked my self-esteem and my life. He always wanted me to have less and feel less than his other children and I did. Yet, he would do something strange. He would say things like, ¨You can turn to me for anything!¨and when I did, humiliate me and say no. The day asked him to help me for books for college, he took me to the priciest mall and bought all his grandkids and himself expensive gifts, and told me I was spoiled and to get student loans. The weird part is…. I justified it.
My dad believed my mother was the love of his life, and she knew he was the destroyer of hers. Her kindness was civility, but to him it was potential that never could be realized. I was, like in most moments of my life, a bridge, and those either get built or burnt. Looking around at a cafe full of computers and cappuccinos, I realized just how much my anxiety had grown in recent months that emails were hard to send. In some ways, I was coming to see the person that most made me feel invisible and worthy of it, at a time, when I knew it was time to stop hiding.
For the past few months, this ¨stomach-ache¨ would ebb and flow. While it is probably gastritis, as well, I noticed it would peak in scenarios where I walked away or the times I would enter rooms and just go to a corner and watch. My relationship with Max was going sour, going out felt numbing, and I found myself speaking to people more in my head than to their face: holding conversations where I could actually talk. My epiphany is that I’m not doing what I want. Saying what I want, and ultimately, living as who I am. I was a disconnected connector or a hopeless, hope-giver; offering to all what I did not have like a well with water that never questioned herself as her only source for it.
I started to tap my toes like a patient waiting for results: cancer or not. Yet, I did remark how beautiful the day was: the bluest sky, clouds pearled in white, and even the trees just felt revived. Moreover, the Coquito Latte I had ordered was just the right amount of sweet: no added sugar needed. I love nature and Coquito, a traditional, Puerto Rican Christmas drink.
So often, we are taught that to be at peace means we can handle ourselves in or beside someone else’s chaos. Yet, being in nature, has taught me its being away from it, and being able to decipher who will bring said chaos before you even open them to your lives. There is value is assessing who is worthy of your energy, and it did not feel like I was inviting in God as much as The Devil, himself, when I was meeting my dad.
If you met my father, you would not believe how evil he is, which is why I was always so insecure about myself. I was the one that emanated trust: attracting people that knew how to vent both their darkness and lightness in me. Yet, the keyword is vent: an extreme purge and not at all gentle. My life felt tussled between punches and praises. I did not know love…. but I knew love-bombing. I did not know hate but I knew vengeful rage. To grow in imbalance makes you confuse what balance actually is, and my virtues were skewed towards negative bents. Sensitivity was ridiculousness. Warmth was neediness. Wisdom was ¨know it all.¨ Compassion meant steam-rolling.
Sitting at the cafe, I felt like google mapping local bridges I could throw myself off of within a 10 minute walk. Perhaps, the Hudson River would be a good way to go: considering it was ¨the hot spot¨ for 80s mob bosses. I would just sink with Jimmy Hoffa in wonder of how my life choices led me to this point. My insecurity stemmed from very real fears that, once again, my fathers vicious nature would be something I had to grow up and handle if I truly was a ¨healed¨ person. In essence, I got the feeling that I was people-pleasing over taking care of my own self-pleasure. By now, I understood, I did not need my dad, and I did not know why I was sipping an iced coffee waiting for someone that I really did not want.
My dad rolled in with a baseball cap, a roll of money, and 3 cellphones. He was grey, but still looked young for a guy in his 7th decade. Out of all my dad’s children, we shared the most in features and interest. Maury would not need a DNA test to say he’s the father, and my dad would not ask. He knew I was his, and had the marriage certificate/ baby test to prove it. That was what was so surprising about my dad and oddly admirable. There were people, like myself, that could say he was the worst thing to ever happen to them, but he always walked into a room like he was the most important person. Meanwhile, I felt I looked like someone trying to immediately locate the open bar and its proximity to the open bathroom. In a way, he helped me understand why predators get away with so much harm: confidence truly is a shield.
He sat down with a huge, fantastic smile, which again, made him so charming. Smiles are really important. It is why I was using Colgate Whitening toothpaste by age 5. I have fallen madly in love with the wrong smiles, or rather men that understood how to look warm until you realized just how cold they turned you even towards yourself. My dad proved looking good matters in being capable of committing the actions you desire, whether good or bad. Today, he seemed excited and stressed like, he was a little boy that decided to play soccer on a mine field.
He was always said he was scared of me and my mother would say that, too. They did not like that I cried, and, eventually, they did not like me speaking up for myself. In truth, I felt my sweetness was a blanket that covered me from being seen as someone who could be bothered. Hence, they did not like that I could go from soft-spoken to direct as if it was a surprise attack from Napoleon on the French shore. The truth is I bottled everything until I could not: often feeling like I had to be pushed off an emotional edge before I even had CLOSE They just did not like any part of me what was not what they wanted or needed from me. Thus, I am not surprised I literally used a cheerleader voice to say ¨Hi!¨and bring a level of comfort to him.
¨Hi¨ he replied in a strange perky, yet pained voice.
Silence would drop on us for 20 minutes, and those 20 minutes would drop on us as if we had decided to watch both Avengers: Infinity Wars between saying ¨hello¨ and ¨how are you?¨ You know you feel tension, when you start looking at the weather and surrounding buildings and trees, while having a literal human being in front of you. The Lower East Side is one of my favorite places on earth because Puerto Ricans made their CLAIM there. It is filled with a history of our journey into a country/ state that would treat us like we were governmentally defined: free- associated, aka associated with freedom but not the owners of it. In some ways, that was my dynamic with my dad: associated to him, but never freed from him.
¨I missed you,¨ he declared with sadness.
¨Yeah, I missed you,¨I said in auto-pilot. I did not even know if I felt that way or my ¨good daughter training was kicking in again. I just knew he could not handle, as well, as I could what he did not want to hear sooo…. I said the right things, which usually meant I could not say how I felt wrong. THIS is trauma training: any child who was told to hold regard and rules for an adult’s emotional wreckage over their own development.
¨I understand why you stopped talking to me,¨ he continued, while I just stared. I was so emotional, I was numb. I was letting him lead a conversation, I had practiced in my head over and over, every time I broke up with another loser boyfriend that reminded me of ¨daddy,¨ every time a friend used me like I was their mother, a boss did not pay me, or a stranger broke my heart like one does a saltine cracker. My dad was my mental root for all the moments of my life that were emotionally devastating because he taught me that you can make a mind silent to what a heart knows: toxic truly is evil. It is not lost. It is not traumatized. It is a constant choice to cause harm unto others.
¨I don´t know if you do,¨ I replied meekly, ¨understand.¨ Sometimes, I wondered if my father’s dismissiveness of me is because I am not exactly a yeller. The Latina fighting style is very Naruto. It involves speed, force, and mystical powers summoned by eye glances and loud, one-word curses. Frankly, I hated that in a family of explosive, combustive rage, I was more depressive. You yelled, at me, I cried, but everybody else yelled back or more. I wanted to do that, but it was not me. At best, I could just loud cry. ¨ I feel like you think I am angry at you because you were not there for me, but I’m angry that you were there and you were just mean and manipulative,¨ I continued.
He nodded, ¨I understand.¨ In perspective, I did not realize this was gas lighting. At the time, I just thought my father was as numb/ emotional in this interaction as me, but for different reasons. I assumed he was coming in with remorse and resentment, we were, in totally, different roles. I was his victim, and he was a man that struggled to see he was not one, which might have explained the Dr.Phil approach he was trying.
Looking, back he started the conversation, but I held it with myself and only a few of his ¨I watch Doctor Phil¨ adages like, ¨I understand¨ without ever saying the specifics of what he understood. That is like someone saying ¨Oh, I had the best pasta, last night,¨and them having no clue the name of the restaurant or its location. Why do I want to know how well you ate, if I cannot? Why do I want to know you understand, if the point is I don’t? My father understood he hurt me, but could not tell me who, what, where, how, and, most importantly, why. He just….. understood.
¨I was on drugs,¨ he declared like he was Christopher Columbus hitting ¨India.¨ My father got sober when I was 16 because, as I mentioned, he found God and got cancer. Together, they formed Cancer God, and gave him a whole new personality, which could be compared to a cult leader. In facing death, he, suddenly, knew what was life, and would go around telling people that he hangs with kids with cancer and does charity work, as if to declare to the world his redemption arc. Even as a teenaged girl, mining through her own suicidal ideation and self-loathing, I was disgusted by his gregarious, open chant of ¨I AM HEALED.¨ It was like a light switch had gone off, which makes sense when you think of Thomas Edison: a man who invented nothing beyond the power of PR campaigns and buying patents. My dad was a PR campaign for good acts…. just not a committer of them.
¨Dad, stop,¨ I said. ¨You were sober when I stopped talking to you because that was my disappointment. I thought addiction made you mean, but YOU are mean… especially to me. You treat me like I am not someone to care for, protect, or prosper. Do you even want those things for me¨ I said suddenly getting revived and riled. I was turning up the emotional meter and starting to say what I wanted to.
¨Of course, I do. I´m your dad,¨ he replied like a math genius would yell ¨4¨ if someone asked what is 2+2.
¨Then why did you sabotage me_ Why did you invest in your others kids, even your grandchildren, but not me. Why did you tell me all the things you were doing for them, and when I asked for the same, you called me spoiled and evil. You said that to a KID!¨ I declared with a growing pride. I was facing Evil, calling it by its name, and its response was: ¨I was on drugs.¨
My dad had a real way of making conversations go his way because he understood his victims wanted clarity, and that they would go in his circle until tired out. He did not have to say much, just hold on until you found yourself too exhausted to continue wanting anymore than a superficial sorry, at best. Yet, I knew too much of my dad. While I knew my father had various women throughout my youngest years, my mother was the most he punished because he ¨loved¨ her, and I spent my whole life trying to study why he believed that he had such a right. I failed him see it was wrong.
¨So you were on drugs when you were running through Washington Heights like, John The Baptist. You were doing Chemo and Cocaine?¨ I answered.
¨Don´t be sarcastic,¨ he bit back.
¨If you were doing all these drugs, while, technically, dying you would be dead,¨ I bit back harder. ¨THIS is what I a talking about! This inability to say you are bad because you chose to be: not because of childhood traumas, cancer, and crack-pipes. Why can’t you say, I was MEAN and I am sorry!¨
¨You were vicious, too, Diandra! Remember, when you told your friends I was a sperm-donor!¨ he declared like we were playing UNO and he had hit me with a reverse.
¨Were those the friends that I had when I was in school and you made me cry in because I could not afford text-books, and you said I was being greedy for asking? That one!¨ I said reversing his reverse with pride. THIS trick, right here, made me like my mother! She will GUT you like a fish just for thinking you can fry her!
In some ways, one of the most frustrating parts of my relationship with my mom is that I felt she did not trust me. She assessed my intentions and actions like a Gotham City Commissioner would The Joker. Yet, she was FAB at reading people, except my dad. He was the one villainous criminal that escaped her Batman detective skills. At times, I wondered if the doubt she had not had with him and his darker intentions, she had, actually, placed towards me.
¨How could you compare a 13 year old girl´s sperm donor comment to, literally, treating like a bastard! What kind of sociopath, does not ask himself, ¨Hmmm, I wonder why the daughter I barely call, expect to verbally insult her thinks I have the paternal depth of an anonymous sperm-donor?¨ I said raising my voice enough for the old man with a dog, sitting next to us, to decide to leave. Moreover, my rising voice made me realize just how sunken this interaction was making me.
¨ You asked me how I felt hurt by you, and I am telling you that moment?¨ he said so sincerely, you would not have thought it was a blatant lie. I swear his voice sounded as convincing as the man who declared the world was flat and made everyone re-think their cruise bookings for 100 years.
¨When did I say that? What? I never asked that?¨ I said coolly but internally I was yelling ¨When THE FUCK DID I ASK THAT QUESTION? Yet, that that was kind of the problem with our dynamic; I responded coolly to his gas-lighting and lies while internally exploding like a California Forest Fire. I was respectful even in the face of his disrespect, and what was, in some ways, his strategy: confuse a person enough and they will forget how they really feel or that their moment is being taken from them. The conversation had changed from how bad he made me feel to, somehow, that one night I called him a sperm-donor, that, unbeknownst to me, I had asked him to discuss. The moment was so deranged, I felt like Wanda Maximoff losing her mind. (Did I mention I’m a Marvel fan?)¨
¨You asked me how I feel and that was a very hard moment for me!¨
¨Was it as hard as the moments, you told me to shut up or chastised in front of your family? How about the moments I found out you were hanging out with your family, and I was not invited? Or how about the fact that when we talk about them, I know they are you family… but do you talk about me…. do you call me family to them?¨ It was something that I had noted. My father called me daughter when I would ask him questions like, ¨Why do you love me?¨ but I was not announced or declared. I was hidden and beaten down.
My dad was silent, but I did not know if this was a ¨humble silence¨ or a ¨Damn, I do not know how to respond to her hysteria, let me just look at the clouds for a bit until we just change the conversation again.
¨Dad?¨
¨Your mother did not want you to know them,¨ he said softly because he knew that was not true. My dad never wanted me around, and only went to see me like, in a way, one would their dealer: in a hidden alley way, with a trench coat, and some McDonald´s money. Yet, it was at that moment, I knew I was not here because I wanted to be. I was here out of duty, and, in a way, he was, too.
I think my dad thought he had to stay in my life and give me an occasional hug to prove, to himself, he tried… I just did not receive. He gave me nothing but his horrible words, acts, and behaviors, but he had to see me to do that, and I think he thought he deserved a badge. He may have ¨loved¨ me and ¨wanted¨ me, but those words come with respect, honor, tenderness, depth, and child support. His choice to blame my mother, in some ways, awoke me to this sleeping fact: he still believed he had to show up, even if it was always with baggage.
My bestie Yuri has always been into ¨self-help¨ books, and it is where she discovered being an Asian woman can feel like you are raised in a pressure cooker. Her mother was not a ¨Tiger Mom¨ as she would say, ¨Her mom fucking killed them!¨ We shared a common-ground in how Latino and Asian cultures can put a lot of pressure on their women to take care of everyone, and not really ask or demand to be taken care of, at least, not from themselves. As she put it, the dilemma that most women face with backlash in either choice is, ¨to self or to serve.¨ If you choose you, you might end up alone, judged, but with a greater sense of self- knowing and fulfillment, but if you choose others´ you might have the pleasure of their pleasure with you and a few laughs, but also a gnawing emptiness. Yet, you should know Yuki is a depressive personality , which means hope is like a unicorn…. a nice , magical thing that lives in books but not in your local forest.
As my father went from blaming drugs to my mother, I felt hurt not by him lying about her… that was common. Yet, by its implications. My mother would give him money when he asked to feed his other kids, and when it came to his turn, after becoming a successful, local pastor, he declared no. If you mistreat those who help you, I am not putting myself in the line of fire for you. Yet, what angered me was that he THOUGHT it would anger. Yes, my mother was untouchable to me, but if you try to push someone’s boundary, how sorry are you really for never even seeing them? I spent my whole life accustomed to his process of blame. First: Drugs Second: My Mother Third: His Family and Fourth: Me. The whole interaction made me recall a conversation with Yuri that I had had a week prior.
We had gone to the cocktail lounge, Ocho, known for it varying Sangria flavors. Downing some Parcha sangrias and a laundry-list of relationship woes. In all her wisdom Yuri said, ¨The irony of being a people-pleaser is that the narcissists we attract do not define us that way. They just think we were who we were. No intentions… no needs.¨ The remark stood with me in the same way a fool stands with wisdom; you know you heard something special, but have no idea what is its significance.
Glaring at my dad glaring at me like, we were two TikTok screens being doom-scrolled at 3AM, I realized my dad did not see me as his victim or his overworked daughter, desperate to please him enough so that he became my image of a dad. I wanted the dad you see in movies that thinks his daughter is gold, brags about her, and gives her the networks and support to build her dreams: things he did for his other kids. Instead, I was, painfully, nothing: a blip in his story, and that was the truth for all my exes.
Raiko: a Cuban chef who, probably, used me with the hopes of a green card, but was incredibly romantic and did an awesome ropa vieja. Two things, I forgot when I caught him cheating with his sisters girlfriend.
Brandon: a gorgeous, Brad Pitt look-alike that I entertained because I was shocked he found me attractive, and I had never dated a white man. We lasted about as long as Brad Pitt did in Thelma & Louise. He ended up just ghosting.
Josian: a full Libra, we had some really deep, wonderful conversations, but he also would turn off. He never declared me his girlfriend, even though we lived together for a year. The randomness of his distance left me insecure because I never left us emotionally, mentally, or physically, but he would sporadically drift in interest. While I never caught him cheating, I would later find out, he had about 3 more side-pieces than a bucket at KFC.
Pedro: smart, funny, and as loud as me we were like the same person, and I liked that about us. We shared similar histories in parents, humor, and he might be the only Dominican man that never cheated. He was good to me and I, for some reason, felt disconnected like, we were too common to be ground-breaking. Albeit, I also felt like he wanted marriage and a kid by the time we were 3 months in and 23. He thought I was his one, and I wonder he was mine, in some ways.
Jung: Similar to Pedro, there was a goofiness to Jung that I enjoyed, but, oppositely, we had nothing in common beyond a shared love for the same tv shows and chicken wings. Within two weeks, I realized I genuinely just wanted someone to binge-watch tv and junk food. Yuri´s cousin, I felt forced to entertain this relationship beyond it expiration date and a 20 pound weight gain.
Max: The latest line-up and nearing two years, Max felt so similar to my dad in personality. If the others either emulated him or completely differed from him in behavior, Max landed right on him. He charming, deceptive, and did not want anyone to have more than what he deemed they should or rather… selfish.
There is an old belief that women date men according to their dads. In essence, if your father was the Lochness Monster, you will either date lagoon trash or stick more to the upper-crust land gentlemen. I kept finding either men who cheated and mistreated me or guys that I eventually would withdraw from when they did neither. If they were good, I would get bored, and if they were horrible, I would get fiercely loyal.
I could sit here and lie, and say that this epiphany is too harsh. Lord knows, he would say that! Yet, I needed to confirm what I felt. ¨Why do you love me?¨ I asked.
¨You’re my kid,¨he replied curtly as if, again, I was swimming in obviousness.
¨No what do you love about me?¨ I asked.
¨I love that you are my kid,¨ he replied again, and I nearly floated away because, for years, I had made the tiniest details of my dad foundational to my love of him. I loved that he knew history and culture. I loved that people liked him so instantaneously. I like that even though he never gave me a compliment or a kind word, he held my hand when he would meet me. In a second, I could name 3 things, and, in minutes, he could not, and that is why I did not truly love my dad and nor did he love me. We were dancing with illusions and his poor life choices would never allow him to know and, thus, truly love me.
In my father’s mind, I was an emblem of everything that did not work out for him by his own fault: a life he wanted and destroyed, including the people that were in it. Psychologically, who really wants to unpack such a symbol. Thus, like Yuri said, I was not somebody that tried to please him and make him feel like a good person, in exchange, for me feeling good about myself. I was just his kid, and he was my dad: titles.
¨This has been a good conversation, kid,¨he abruptly declared. Meanwhile, I felt massacred like the only lamb killed in Thanksgiving: unnecessarily taken out for the wrong holiday. He was festive as if I he had said ¨I´m sorry¨ and I did, too. Yet, there was no real forgiveness. I did not need to apologize to him, and, in perspective, I did not need his sorry because he could not say what was the wound. ¨I´m really glad we are back in each other’s lives,¨ he smiled and the worst part…. I did, too.
I stood up and he hugged me tight like, someone who was relieved to find their loved one after a search and rescue. My father had a real knack for selective hearing. He heard everything I said, and, somehow, just reacted as if I had not said anything at all. In some ways, I felt like his dismissiveness and disrespect was almost strategic like, he wanted to push me away enough so that when I walked away, it looked like I walked but he stayed and tried. Yet, amidst his arms, I felt like I was falling back into a pattern that I had begun to feel in my love life with Max.
Mi prima- hermana, Jalitza, one time tagged me in a post ¨God Bless the brave women that date artists.¨ I laughed but I also FELT the passive aggression: a tool, rarely, used by Latinos, as we prefer straight aggression; speak your truth, and it will not exactly set you free but, sometimes, you just have to speak. She never liked Max, and had confronted me on my own quote about him, ¨He’s just like my dad.¨
You ever say something so stupid that you do not realize just how dumb you are. I, consistently, compared Max to my dad like a woman openly swinging a red flag in her face.
I would even laugh that Max was a karmic relationship, and reminded me of my dad because they shared so many astrological placements: a side gig I had recently picked up. We had been together for nearly two year and, like my dad, he was charming, knew how to follow the fun, and never entered a room where people did not like him. Yet, most importantly, he knew how to take from others while never giving back. In essence, he was arrogant but in complete belief that he was virtuous, and that delusion attracted me because I wanted to be that.
My father was really good at never paying for his sins. In some ways, he thought he did because he had addictions and childhood traumas, and a newfound congregation that thought trauma-bonding equated faith and healing. Yet, he never confronted or allowed the people he destroyed, like myself, to fully express their pain and demand he alleviate it. His remorse was superficial, and Max could be the same, and that made me jealous.
My whole life I felt guilty for everything. I, one time, chased down a baby in a stroller because, when I was texting, it waved and I did not wave back. So I CHASED A BABY TO WAVE TO IT…. Just out of remorse. Yet, that privilege to harm and go unharmed is, in some ways, why jealousy and justice can be blurred. There is something really sad about watching someone who hurt you have material wealth and safety. Their lowering of your esteem, literally, challenged how you see yourself and your abundance, and, sometimes, I think that is what privilege is, at its core…. the ability to be a villain. Max and my dad shared that, and they got things that I felt my good heart could not.
The past few months, Max and I had begun fighting more because I felt like a caretaker. Like most artists, he would have periods of depression, and if there was one thing I loved to do… is make everyone feel better while completely fucking myself over. He, a musician, felt stalled and me, a fellow musician, suddenly became a walking A&R. Contacts, plans, marketing strategies, and songs! OH MY! I began pouring my creativity in hopes to lift his spirits and it worked. Within weeks, he had an album written and inspired by me, and I had…..nothing: journal entries of half-melodies and lyrics I was ready to continue offering him. Once again, I was putting myself next to my desires but not in them.
I wanted to be an active artist, in a relationship with someone that respected me, and in an all around better place with myself without ever actually approaching who that is. Yet, as Max began to discredit me in his work and start to gaslight me that I should not give with demands, my nausea blew up. You know you are with an asshole when they say things like, ¨So you only give to receive?¨or they always accuse you of gaslighting while they might as well be an OVEN. The dynamic began to sicken me because I was dating my bully. He was just a full manifestation of all my inner cruelties towards myself, and another excuse for why I never did what I wanted…. just helped those that had the courage to go for it .
In truth, when you date a narcissist, it is hard not to admire how they feel they deserve everything they want, while you, despite all your goodness, do not. He moved in desires and thus went for his goals without any moral measures, while I felt like a sinner even if I had yet to commit one. I thought with a mentality of you get what you deserve, but he thought in a mindset of you get what you want, and that is POWERFUL. He never cut himself off, while I, barely, could begin. Walking back to our shared, Caribbean Heights apartment we shared, I felt out of my body. What was I doing with MY life beyond offering it to anyone who would have me?
Life had gotten too deep in a matter of one Coquito Latte and a, technically, 30 minute conversation. My dad had text me, ¨Great seeing you, sweetie!¨ and I felt dirty like, no amount of Garnier Fructis could wash the amount bullshit follicle I had swallowed, internally. Moreover, I was dressed in a tulip-print cardigan and some ripped jeans. I just did not feel appropriately dressed for someone rewatching their entire life like a movie. Heading into my 30s, I felt too old to suddenly realize I never felt young. I was always taking care of others, including my dad’s feelings, and now …. I wanted to take care of mine without knowing what they were.
¨You back,¨ Max exclaimed while watching House of Dragon on full volume and sprawled on our blue couch with blueberry pop-tarts. We were nerds, and, apparently, hard of hearing.
¨Yeah,¨I said quietly.
¨How did it go,¨ he asked while feigning over Rhaenyra.
¨It went.¨
¨That’s nice,¨ he responded like I was telling him about my summer picnic at Windsor Castle. I know that it is not always easy for men to pick up women feelings, but sometimes the lack of awareness comes from not wanting to be aware.
I popped in some pop-tarts and looked at the timer as if it was a bomb with a few seconds to go off. Blanked, I asked out loud, ¨What do you love about me?¨
¨What?¨ he yelled while rubbing our dog.
¨What do you love about me?¨ I asked holding the burning pop-tarts in my bare hands. I was an emotional ghost, the equivalent to Casper: friendly but still dead.
¨ I love that your my girl,¨ he said without looking away from the dragons raining fire on some running men.
I stared in silence, and then proceeded to our bedroom without turning on the lights on or getting a proper plate for my pop-tarts. I closed the door and sat on the corner of our bed with such a deep, devastating sadness that I did not cry. Instead, I looked into the darkness as if it was a literal manifestation of how I had been seeing myself my entire life. There was not one person that could list why they loved me beyond the fact that I was simply present in their life. I was the most impacted person to not be impactful.
