ASYAD - Day 112 - Turning a Corner

Over the past few months, I've made a lot of changes in my life. I've changed my diet and exercise in order to lose the 20 pounds I gained while with S (as well as another 30) and to finally get my waistline at a healthy place. I am living alone for the first time in my life. I'm taking steps to move up in my career.

My life, for the most part, is good. I'm healthier than I've been in 25 years. (Okay, and hungrier, but we'll let that pass for now.) I can do everything that I want to do - on my own - with minimal complications. I've gone kayaking, hiking, and camping on my own. My apartment is lovely and clean, and I can run around naked anytime I want and not worry about who may walk in. (Gasp! I love to run around naked in my home!)

I miss S daily still. Or rather, I miss what I hoped we'd have. But it's a dull ache now. An acceptance ache. The kind of sore tooth that you know is there so you put your tongue on it occasionally, but you're not calling the dentist every five minutes anymore.(Forgive me the analogy; I just had a root canal.) We still talk regularly, but the urgency to have his love is mostly gone. I'm not looking to "make" him take me back. I'm just enjoying the time I do spend with him as my friend. He's a wonderful person, and I'm grateful that he's still in my life.

Somewhere in all of this, I've turned a corner of sorts. I'm finally looking to myself first. It's not evoking the relief or extreme joy that I thought it would, but it is a sort of peace that I didn't know I could feel.

Once, a few years ago, one of the most amazing men I've known saw the sadness in my eyes and said, "I'm not going to wish you happiness. That's fleeting and ephemeral. I'm wishing you peace, because that's what we all really need in our souls. Simply, peace." I lost that dear, sweet man not long after, and I feel that loss now more than ever. His kind, generous spirit understood humanity and humans in a way that made life easier.

I feel like I should be honest with all of you. When this started, my goal was to be single for a year and a day - and for myself, I included no casual dating and absolute celibacy in that. I had it in my head that I wasn't capable of casually dating anyone; that I am an all-or-nothing kind of girl. But as time has marched on, I've done some serious soul searching. The truth is, I had no idea what casually dating was like for me anymore. It has been more than 25 years since I've done it, so how could I possibly know how I'd respond to that kind of thing? And, to probably be more frank than any of you want to know, I really missed the physical joy of being with another person. It has been a very, very long time since I've truly enjoyed that. My recent-past relationships weren't stellar in that department.

So, I reached out into the ether to see what dating was like right now. And to my utter shock, I was overwhelmed with offers for dates. Men from 18 (what the bloody hell??) to 64 were interested in taking me out. I went out on a few dates, and I've met some really decent guys. In case you were curious, no, I absolutely did not go out with the child of 18, but I did go out with a 25-year-old man just to see what that would be like. It lasted as long as it took me to drink my beer. My bottom limit is now 30. I've winnowed the field down to a handful of guys that I enjoy spending time with, and we're keeping things so casual as to be barely seeing each other. It's perfect. I have maybe one or two dates a week, they tell me that I'm sexy and beautiful, I get out of the apartment and do new things with these new people, and then I go home and love my life with my dog.

I don't know how healthy that is. Does it feed my need for external validation? Absolutely. These men think that I'm amazing, special, and beautiful. It's been so long since I've been told those things by men not married, or related to me. Both M and S were ridiculously frugal with compliments to me, and I thrive under those compliments. Again, I have no idea how healthy or unhealthy that is, but it's pretty much integral to who I am at this point. And it's helping me rebuild my self-esteem. So I'm going to take it. I'm going to enjoy it for what it is. These guys aren't telling me these things for any reason other than they think and feel it in the moment they say it. And that's so heady.

The dating thing is nice, but for the first time, it's an addendum to my life, not the focus of it. My life revolves around me, my dog, and my art. My life revolves around building my career, living out loud, and being myself. My life is about me, and I am near tears with the joy of being able to say that honestly.

I still ache for what could have been. I still miss being in a relationship. But it's easier to set that aside now. It's easier to keep the focus where it's supposed to be.

ASYAD - Day 100 - What I've learned so far

One hundred days ago, I started on a journey of self-discovery. I wish that I could say that I've had some major epiphanies and life-altering understandings, but I'm not sure that I have.

Things I have learned about myself:

• I make things easy for people to do things with me in the hopes that people will want to do things with me.
• I don't trust people to care for me as I am.
• My fear of being forgotten stems from the two points above.

Also:

• My belief in who I am is stronger than those fears and insecurities.
• I will fight for myself when a guy isn't in the picture.
• When a guy is in the picture, the top three points take over.

So here's the problem. I can know these things, and have for a while now, but unless I'm willing to make real changes based on this knowledge, it's useless. To date, I've not done so. I've focused too much on how I'm feeling and not nearly enough on what I'm doing.

Habits created over a lifetime don't dislodge because I figured out that I'm doing them. For decades, I've adjusted my life to make it easier for people to love me. That's not going to disappear overnight. Hell, that's not even going to disappear over a month. Especially if I haven't worked up some way to make those changes. 

Conscientious living takes a lot of energy. A lot of energy. But it's the only way that I'm going to break these habits, and I have got to break them. I have to. My heart can't take these kinds of relationships anymore. My faith in humanity is suffering every time I give so much of myself - however misguided - and get so little in return. Because however much I fought the idea that I deserve more love than I've been given, however immodest I believe it to be, it's true. I absolutely do. But I'll never get it unless I demand it.

We, as a society, give little value to things freely given. We buy into the hype that it's worthless unless we've paid some price for it. I've devalued myself immensely by freely giving love, time, and energy. My love is taken with no return because they didn't invest anything to begin with. There was no need. 

There are memes and stories and beautiful poems told about women who love freely. It's a point of pride, if you believe them. You hear people say things like, "Don't let that heartache take away your ability to love freely." I was this many years old when I realized what that actually meant. 

It doesn't mean to love enough for you both. It doesn't mean to give up everything for them. It doesn't mean to check your own needs and wants at the door. That's codependency. No, what it means is once someone has earned your trust and respect, then love them freely. Then give them your whole heart. Then, and only then, do you love them with abandon.

That's the piece that I was missing. Making them earn the right to my absolute love. Such a small piece, and yet it's everything. 

Decades old habits don't change overnight. My belief that deserving love is immodest won't change because I recognize that's wrong thinking. Deprogramming childhood training will never be easy. This is a hard path I'm on.

Three months and a few days in - 100 days after a starlit night - I still hurt. I still don't fully understand how a person can do the things the men in my life have done to someone who loved them freely. But I have a path now. I know what I need to do. 

It starts with trusting and respecting myself. That's my first and only goal right now. And it's hard. Oh so goddamn hard. It's fighting a lifetime of hearing my father's voice in my head. Of watching my family move on without me, never really fitting in. Always being the "off" one. 

But here's the thing. I have absolutely no problem doing that in a professional setting. I demand respect for my knowledge, my skills, and my leadership. I refuse to be devalued by anyone, be it in my job or my hobby. I only have this problem with relationships with men. 

I don't have an answer to this. I'm not sure how to fix it. But I have to somehow. I've got another 265 days to figure it out before I'm back out there. 

Right now, I can't imagine that another 2650 days will get me there, but 100 days ago I didn't think that I could sit on my couch by myself in an empty apartment and feel comfort in that, either. But I did exactly that last night. 

So there's hope. I'm 100 days in, and I finally feel... hope.

ASYD - Day 95 - Learning from Jane

It's been a while. So long, in fact, that a friend reached out to me to see if I was okay. I am. Okay, I mean. Still processing a lot, still spending way too much time in my own head. Still wishing I had someone to love me - to truly cherish me.

The last couple of weeks, I've been binge watching Jane the Virgin. It's a love story. Well, actually, it's multiple love stories, and I thought it would be so hard - too hard - to watch. I'm fighting hard to be okay being single, but at the same time, I'm still wishing so much to have someone cherish me, to come home to that is just happy that I'm there, that wants to make my bad day better. Someone who will go out of their way for me like I do for others. Make me a priority. And here's this grand love story - series of grand love stories - how could I watch it?

Easily. Because I got something else entirely from the show. I learned from Jane the Virgin - from Jane, the Virgin - how to have an adult relationship. How to think about what I want first, and then think about the other person. Jane does an exceptional job of making sure that she's treated right. She refuses to compromise herself to do the easy thing.

If you've never seen the show, you should. The whole thing - all five years - are on Netflix right now. Go watch it. There are four strong, independent, capable women who move through their days, learning from and living with one another. And most importantly, loving each other. I mean, sure, there are guys in the show, too, and they're important. But they're not the story for me. The story for me is about those women knowing who they are, what they want, and who they want in their lives. And fighting to make sure that they each take care of themselves. Through it all, they have each other. The men flow through their lives, coming and going, but the women have each others' backs from beginning to end.

I want a partner in my life. I want a guy to come home to who will take one look at me and know that I need to sit down, have a glass of wine, and be coddled and cared for. Who will be there, who will fight for our relationship, who chooses me every day. But... I want that sisterhood, too.

I'm incredibly blessed in that I count four amazing women as my sisters, one by blood and three by heart. They are every bit as strong, resilient, silly, and amazing as the Villanueva women (and Petra). They hold me up, keep me grounded, and make me laugh at the absolute best times. I hope that I am as good to them as they are to me. I try to be.

Why has it taken so long to write here? Because I didn't like how I felt, or what I kept thinking in my head. I kept rewriting my relationship with S into what I wanted it to be, instead of what it was. He and I work so well together on paper. We have a lot in common, and we get along incredibly well. At the end of the day, we have so much joy when we're together. But...

Come on. You knew there was a but because otherwise we'd be together and I wouldn't be on this bizarre teenager's journey at nearly 50. So, but...

... he doesn't love me. Not the way that I need. Not the way that I deserve. Not the way that he wants to love me, either. And if I've learned nothing else from Jane the Virgin, it's that I do deserve to be cherished. It's what I want, and I can't settle for less. It hurts that he doesn't - and probably can't - love me that way, but I do know that it's okay. I can wait for the guy who can. Whose life fits mine just as well, and who loves me. Someone who will make some grand gesture, who will fight every day to make sure that I know that I'm loved.

I should feel good about that, but I don't. I just feel tired. Worn out. I'm three months into this journey, and I'm already so done. I'm looking for that Happily Ever After, and wondering if it will ever come. And wondering if I'll be okay if it doesn't. Because I won't settle again for anything less. So, I guess I'll have to be. Right?

Right.

ASYD - Day 63 - "You deserve better"

When someone breaks up with their partner - by choice or no - it is inevitable that someone will say, "You deserve so much better than them." It's happened at least a dozen times since this latest break up, and even more with my ex-husband. And every single time, I cringe. Often, visibly.

"You deserve better." 

So much weight in that statement. So many assumptions, so many judgments. 

I used to think that my friends said this as a way to say that I was better than my ex. I deserved better than that lousy so-and-so. And there's no question that several of my friends meant exactly that. There are other friends, however, who meant something entirely different. They didn't mean that I was better than my ex. Rather, they meant that I deserved better than that relationship. I deserved to be loved wholly, completely, and with abandon by my partner, something that I've never experienced. Something that I'm not sure I believe is even possible. 

To be perfectly frank, I didn't know that I really deserved that kind of love. My friends are great, but they don't know the things that I've done in my life, the people that I've hurt. There are people to this day who despise me for the things that I did in college. Hell, I despise many of the things that I did in college. I'm still horribly ashamed of how I left my first husband, and that was 18 years ago. 

I'm a nice person now, but I wasn't always. I am still haunted by who I was then, and I work very hard to avoid becoming her again. 

My hero and constant cheerleader sent me a video today of a guy talking about how we love ourselves, or rather don't. The comedian said that if we love ourselves only 20%, when someone comes along and loves us just 30%, we're over the moon! Look at how much they love me! But if we loved ourselves 100% - loved ourselves fully - someone else would have to really go above and beyond to show their love for us in a way that we would recognize as worthy of us. 

This struck me right between the eyes. 

Can you imagine loving yourself so much that you don't just take the next person that shows an interest that's also mildly interesting? Wait, and get this... instead of accepting the occasional scraps of attention and love offered on their limited schedule, you expect - EXPECT - to be a priority in your partner's life. AND THEY LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO DO IT.

Mind. BLOWN.

Okay, so typing this up, I'm already feeling gross for thinking like this. How horribly selfish. So many other things are more important than I am: parents, children, careers, education, pets, gaming, the lawn, that annoying hangnail. But Christ, I'm so tired of being last on that stupid list. I'm tired of my wants and needs being merely a blip on the screen of their life, while I will rearrange my entire life for them. Only my kids have taken precedence in my life, and they're all adults now. 

Most of my relationships, I've gone along just hoping that one day they would make the choices that I did for them without my having to ask. They didn't have to ask me, after all. I showered my love via my actions and choices (and often, my wallet) without them having to so much as look my direction. They mention a need or desire, and I jump to meet it. A casual comment has resulted in my spending bill money on a gas grill, or money I'd saved for a dress on a pool cue. 

Because if I did, they would love me, and maybe, just maybe, they would one day wake up and do the same for me. Never mind that there's a ridiculous amount of broken that caused me to do the things that I did. That's part of the co-dependency thing. Trying to buy love, to manipulate a person into loving me. And I was crushed - absolutely crushed - when not one of the men I've dated responded in kind.

Wait, that's actually not true. There was one guy who did respond in kind. Within four months, I realized how not okay this was and walked away. And two months later, I got a restraining order against him.

Dear Lord, I really need to do a better job of actually looking at my life. *headdesk*

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around what a healthy relationship should look like - with myself as well as with someone else. What do I want it to look like? Who do I want me to be both in and out of any relationship? It's tough, and I spend a lot of time arguing with myself about this. I do know what I don't want it to look like, though. 

Some time ago, I told S that he and I did a very good job of living his life, and I needed us to at the very least cross over to living our life. It didn't happen. I recognized the issues but chose not to act because at least I wasn't alone. I settled for 30%.

I see growth now. Three months ago, I wouldn't have even been able to imagine being "selfish" enough to love myself 100% first. To expect to be made a priority with the intention of not settling for less. I'm still leery of how I could do such a thing, but it's not completely alien. It seems... possible. Maybe not plausible - who would love me like that? - but possible that I could refuse a relationship that didn't. 

For once, I'm focusing on what I'm willing to accept instead of what someone else is willing to give. This is huge for me. It's a step toward buying into the idea that I deserve better. That it's better to have no one's love than merely 30% of someone's, and that stems from having 100% of my own. That's a lot of numbers, and I hate numbers. Let me restate this better.

I can't settle for 30% of someone else's love anymore. I can't even settle for 80%. I deserve to be the highest priority in my partner's life with the sole exception of his children and himself. I deserve to be loved wholly, completely, and with abandon. I deserve to be put first in my own life, and I deserve to be put at the top of someone else's.

ASYD - Day 49 - And the test results are in: Need help ASAP

I joined a divorce support group last week at a local church. I'm not Christian, nor do I believe in a lot of the Christian tenants, but this church seems much more of the "love thy neighbor" type than the "stone the prostitute" type. The group isn't overly religious so far, and regardless, I need the support. I feel like I'm failing at this whole being single thing on my own.

The group bases its meetings on different chapters in a book called "Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends". There are issues with this book, for sure, starting and ending with the level of privilege and lack of diversity that's shown in the examples provided. I'm finding this to be a theme with these types of books, mostly because they're nearly all written by older, white men, but that's an argument of a different sort.

Anyway, the group suggests that you take a survey when you first start meeting with them, and then again once you've gone through a full cycle of 15 weeks (i.e. the full 15 chapters in the book). Partly because I love self-assessment tests (only reason to read Cosmopolitan really), I was a good girl and took the test.

Um. Yeah.

There are some results a girl just doesn't want to see.

I think it's important, for context, to understand how I saw myself three years ago:

• Confident and self-assured in my own body
• I knew that I wasn't a svelte, model-type woman, but I also knew my own attractiveness and self-worth even at 50 pounds overweight.
• Confident and self-assured in my personality
• I have known my whole life - thanks, Dad! - that I'm not everyone's cup of tea, and for the most part, I was really okay with that. Not everyone had to like me so long as I knew that I was a good person and there were those who did think I was pretty okay, if not pretty awesome.
• Competent and capable
• Curve balls were a dime a dozen when raising four children, and I felt fully capable of at the very least mitigating their damage, if not outright dealing with them forcefully. 
• Emotionally Capable
• As a heart-on-my-sleeve person, I knew that I would always feel stronger and more obviously than the average person, and I also knew that this gave me a leg up over the more emotionally quiet folks out there because I always, always, always moved through those feelings because I simply wasn't built any other way.

That was three years ago, before The Year of Hell began. Before the death of a dear friend, then the death of my mom, moving away from the house I raised my kids in, the death of my marriage, losing my job, my youngest leaving home, and a full-on health crisis. All in less than 12 months. 

That'll leave a mark.

And it did. I mean... damn... these results... They just freaking hurt to look at.

It's a 66-question test that gauges where you are on your personal path through the loss of your marriage. It breaks it up into six categories: Self Esteem/Self-Worth, Emotional Disentanglement, Anger, Grief, Rebuilding Social Trust, and Social Self-Worth. Each score is 1 out of 100, and a low number indicates "areas for improvement".

None of my scores are over 50%. Not one of them. Only one comes even close, and that's because my friends are amazing and I recognize their love for me.

*sighs* Here we go:

• Self Esteem/Self-Worth - 1%
• Emotional Disentanglement - 17%
• Anger - 20%
• Grief - 9%
• Rebuilding Social Trust - 1%
• Social Self-Worth - 42%

My overall score: 5%

Three years ago I knew who I was. I knew what I wanted, and how to get it. I knew that while not perfect, I was a positive force in this world.

Today, I'm struggling to remember what it feels like to look in the mirror and be happy. Not even bone-deep happy, just not freaking bone-deep sad. The kind of happy that comes from being comfortable in your own skin. I was that once, and now, I'm not comfortable breathing. And this test shows it. It shows how little I value myself, and how little I trust beyond myself.

I do understand that this is an assessment of who I am right now, seven weeks out of a relationship that was never going to work, and two years out of a relationship that was ripped from me. I get that this is a road map for me, a way forward. It still sucks to think about how far I've fallen. I mean, it's not news to me. Not really. But ... you get it. It just sucks.

This is supposed to be a way to see where I should start, and since everything but "my friends freaking rock" is so low, I don't know that it does that. Clearly my trust in self and others is the lowest, so probably start there? If only I knew how.

Because my friends freaking rock, I know I'm going to get a lot of "I love you as you are" comments, which are incredibly sweet. But if those were going to do the trick, I'd be right back where I started because I've gotten hundreds of those comments over the last few years. I appreciate them, and they keep me going on a lot of days, but it's not enough to fix this.

No, this has to come from inside myself, from my own assessments and understandings. I have to see myself differently than I do today, and that's ... jeez, it feels like such an impossible task. I simply can't see what all of you see right now. I'm trying. 

I think need a better road map. 

For those interested in taking this test yourselves, it's here: https://www.afterdivorcesupport.com/self-test/ I get nothing out of sharing it, and I have no idea of its validity. It's just the one my support group recommends. Fair warning, you'll get a call from the guy who created it, Nick, but I didn't answer, and then a couple of days later he sent the results via email anyway, with an offer to talk about it - No Obligation! - if I wanted to call him. I don't, but thanks, Nick. I appreciate your concern. :)

ASYD - Day 47 - Feelings are hard

I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine today. He has the uncanny ability to clarify so many things for me. I vent to him, whine about how I feel, what I'm thinking, how I'm acting, and he distills it down into simple actions. Or he points out that what I think is horribly unhealthy is, in fact, pretty damn healthy.

Today, we talked about how hard it is to just feel feelings. I'm trying to allow myself the sadness of missing S, while also recognizing that how I felt throughout that whole relationship was incredibly unhealthy. I explained it as trying to remember the moments while rewriting how I felt in them.

This is hard to explain. I'll give an example:

Most of the time that S and I were together, I was angsty. I felt that it wasn't right - not for him, nor for me - but I wanted it to be right. I like him. I wanted to love him. I wanted him to love me. In the romantic sense, not in the way that I love all of my friends. We worked well together, and I really wanted to build that into something special for both of us.

Big reveal: That doesn't work.

In fact, it creates situations of stress, anger, hurt, and confusion. All of the emotions that I have now equated to my relationship with S. And honestly? To M, my ex-husband, as well. It's hard to think back on moments - memories - and not immediately feel those things. I get images in my mind about going to play pool, hanging out at the house watching TV, playing with the dogs... and I immediately feel anxious. It's not a warm-fuzzy feeling of being with someone I love doing something I enjoy. It's anxiety over how that person feels about me, how I'm being perceived by that person, and how my actions are affecting all of that. And it drove my self-esteem into the gutter.

See, this whole codependency thing. It's about control. It's a deep-in-your-soul belief that you have the power and strength to control those around you by your actions. So when you can't control things, when people don't do what you want them to do, it digs into that belief. It undermines this concept you have in your own power.

Shockingly, this means that my memories are pretty tainted. Those emotions were valid, of course, but when I try to think back on those memories and instead see it as two friends enjoying a day, it's so incredibly different. If I set aside - not disregard, but actively set aside - those feeling of anxiety, it's a pretty wonderful history of memories. I'm sad that I tainted 18 months of interactions with those anxieties, with my need to control. I want to re-remember everything in the light of what I now accept to be true: that S and I are great companions, but not great partners.

I talked to my friend about this. I had been in a funk, sad and despondent, missing S. I said that I was afraid that I was wallowing instead of just feeling because I didn't know where the line was.

He said, "It seems to me that wallowing is being submerged and not processing."

I replied, "I'm struggling with trying to change the feelings. Like, instead of thinking back and feeling the angst, changing that to acceptance."

He said, "That's the processing part, right?"

Huh? Wait....what?

I've known that I need to process my feelings, that I need to work through them, that ... well you know all the same psycho-babble I do. I needed to do that stuff. But I've never once thought through what "that crap" actually was. Well, now I do. At least, this is my version of what that crap means.

It's okay to feel sad for the loss of a relationship. It's okay to feel loss in the potential for a relationship. It's even okay to feel loss of the person. Those are all valid things. The processing part is looking at those feelings and seeing how they change with the new information in hand. Like, I miss the idea of S and I as a couple. It was never going to be as neither of us really felt that spark. But the idea of it, the potential - that was real. And it was a dream for me for a long time. Now I know, however, the reality of that potential - it was nil. We just don't work that way, the two of us. Blaming him or demanding he do things differently or trying to force him into some mold - all that does is destroy what is actually there. That friendship, that love. And when I think of those anxious feelings, when I think of the sadness of that loss, through the lens of friendship instead of romantic love, it takes on a new life for me.

I don't see his actions as "slights" or uncaring. I don't see the things that he said as unkind or hurtful. Our time together isn't filled with lost potential, but rather comfortable camaraderie. We were always friends, and never really lovers. As such, his actions fit for us. It just didn't fit the dream I had for us.

This isn't to say that there weren't issues even as friends. I'm not taking all of the responsibility on myself of where we are or how we were. He, like me, has issues with relationships. He, like me, was pushing things along for far too long. He has his own path to tread through therapy and self-discovery that has nothing to do with me.

On Sunday, I told him that I needed a break from our friendship. The pain was - and is - still too raw. This is going to be a process, to work through these emotions and relearn how to feel them. It wasn't going to happen while he and I continued down the same road, trying to be friends. I can't try to be around him without the angst until I can get rid of the angst from the past.

This whole thing is so freaking hard. Every day, I wonder how I'm going to find the energy to once again live inside my own head. At what point do I get to just be, and not overthink every single word or deed I've ever done, looking for examples of my deficits and how to fix them? There just doesn't appear to be any kind of relief. I know that's the reason for meditation, and I walk so much that I find room for that as I can. It's still hard.

If you're going through this crap, like I know a lot of my friends are, know that I get it. I understand why getting out of bed hurts sometimes. But what are our options? I'm not going to go back to being that person again. I really want to be someone I want to love, and this is how I get there. And you can get there, too. We'll trudge through this crap together, arm-in-arm. We'll be a tiny army of self-love by the end of this, damnit.

We've got this. Together, we've got this.

ASYD - Day 42 - The woman behind the mask

Yesterday, I touched on something that I feel needs a bit more attention. I said that I am co-dependent because of the fact that my father was an alcoholic - and because I'm afraid that one day you all will see who I "really" am.

I spent the better part of last night thinking about that. Who am I really? Like, if you saw me naked and vulnerable, what would you see? What am I so afraid of you finding?

Honestly? I'm afraid of you finding out that I'm the person that my father always said that I was.

A few short tales of my father, me, and his drinking:

- My earliest memory of my father is when I was three years old. He had passed out in the kitchen chair and toppled onto the floor. My four-year-old brother and I were trying to get him up before Mom saw him because we knew she'd be mad. My dad slapped me and told me to get off him. My brother, on the other hand, was allowed to help him up.

- It's 1:00 am and my brother, sister, and I are sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to my mom and dad fight. He's drunk and angry. My brother is helping my sister get her shoes on, so she would have been three, him eight, and me six or seven. When Dad hits Mom a second time, she calls us down to leave. We head over to my godparents' house and stay there for a week with Mom. Dad goes into rehab. Again.

- When I'm 10 and my sister is seven, we're arguing about doing the dishes. Typical kid stuff, you know? "You wash this time! I did it last time!" My dad, drunk of course, comes raging into the kitchen at us. My sister and I cowered in a corner. My dad took every dish on the counter and smashed them at our feet. Then he opened every cupboard and smashed them at our feet, too. All the while, he's raging about what a worthless little bitch I am, how I need to just learn to shut the fuck up, how I'm one of the worst things to ever happen to him. He then storms out of the house, gets in his truck, and heads to the bar. My mom cleans up the mess while my sister cries and goes to our godmother's house. I sit there at the table, stoic, because really, why cry?

- Thanksgiving Day when I'm 13. Dad, the cook in the house, is drunk (it's almost noon) and angry that the turkey didn't brown the way he wanted it to. All of the other food is sitting on the counter, waiting to go into the oven. Dad pulled the turkey out of the oven and throws it out the kitchen window ... without opening the window. It's Thanksgiving Day, November in Des Moines, IA, and all of the stores are closed, and we now have no turkey and a huge gaping hole in the window. Dad raged for a few minutes then went and passed out while Mom, my brother, my sister, and I cleaned up the mess. For the record, cardboard isn't an effective insulator.

- At 15, my best friend is over at the house. We're getting ready to go out for the night when my dad comes into the kitchen in a full-on rage. I don't even remember what it was about, but I do remember the vitriol and hatred in his face. He grabbed one of his multiple pill bottles and empties the contents into his hand. He holds them up to me, furious, and says, "I'm doing this because of you, you dirty little bitch." And he downs all of the pills. Then he throws the bottle at my feet and goes to lie down on the couch. My mom tells me to call an ambulance while she tries to get him to stand up and walk around. I do, but it took an effort to dial the three necessary numbers.

- It's a Saturday when I'm 17, getting ready to leave the house. Dad and I are the only two home since my mom and brother are both at work and my sister is out at a friend's. He gets pissed at me for God-only-knows what, again. I finally snap. I'd had enough of this bullshit, the constant belittling, the never-ending complaints about what a horrible human being I am. I yell at him, tell him to just shut the fuck up and go sleep it off. He hauls off and slaps me. I slap him back. He looks stunned, then he screws up his fist and punches me in the face. I leave and go to a friend's house. I'm there for two weeks before my mom convinces me to come home. He never apologizes, and in fact, doesn't acknowledge my existence for another couple of weeks.

- Another Saturday, when I'm 23, single, pregnant with twins. I'd just had a conversation with my baby-daddy about marriage, to which he said that he didn't think he was ready. I was devastated because I was very much in love with him. My dad, drunk per the norm, and I are in the kitchen, and he asks me when I'm going to get married. I tell him that we'd decided to wait to make sure it was the right thing for us. He then spend 15 minutes telling me what a whore I am, how I'm bringing two little bastards into the world. That he's ashamed of me, of what I've done. He can't even look at me, he says, and he leaves the room.

He died when I was 37 years old. That kind of shit? Never stopped. When he was drunk, I was "thunder thighs", "that little bitch", "that whore", etc. I don't remember a single time that my father told me he was proud of me. Not when I graduated from college. Not when I produced amazing grandchildren for him to dote on. Not when I was a fantastic single mother to those children.

When he was sober? Mostly, he just kind of ignored me, which was preferred. Sometimes he was kind, like when my friend committed suicide when we were 14. We watched a lot of old TV together, quietly sitting in the living room together, just the two of us. When he was sober, he wasn't a good dad, but he wasn't a bad one, either.

But yeah... drunk? Heh.

Despite all of this, I don't hate my dad. He started drinking when he was nine years old. He was beaten and abused by his parents his entire childhood. He was remarkably intelligent, and only had a ninth-grade education. He loved my mom more than anything, despite the way he treated her. And when I really needed him - like when my friend died - he was the one who sunk on the kitchen floor and cried with me while my mom stood at the sink completely at a loss of what to do.

In my family, we regularly say that Dad was an awful father and a worse husband, but he was a good man and a great grandfather. He, like most of us, failed in very fundamental ways while succeeding in others.

My fear, however, is that one day, someone will look inside me and see the ugly, horrible person that my father saw. They'll see a monster where my soul lives, and they'll find me as repugnant as my dad did. I am co-dependent so that I can protect all of you from the person I believed myself to be for a very, very long time.

A college friend posted yesterday that she'd seen a small bit of my life then, and she totally understood why I was co-dependent. I had to be to survive. I responded that I no longer get to hide behind my childhood for my issues. I've been an adult longer than I was a child, and it's time to take responsibility for who I am.

This includes how I see myself.

My dad was wrong. He is the one who never really saw me. He is the one who saw a monster instead of a good soul with a strong sense of right and wrong.

The true irony is that the person that I am today is who he would have been had he not been an alcoholic. I believe firmly in supporting the weak, just like he did. I believe that everyone has a right to be whomever they want, just like he did (except that I include women). I would give my last dollar to help someone else, going hungry so someone else won't. My dad was the same, and I saw that happen more than once. I love with all of my heart, just like he did. I can empathize with most anyone, as he did.

The monster my father raged against in me wasn't a monster at all. It was a reflection of what he could never be.