"Pick yourself up. Don’t ever grovel before a man, any man, including me. Be strong. Have some self-respect. You’ll move on with your life. And you’ll be ok. I promise you."
I said it in a soft but firm tone, even though I know my choice of words may have seemed rather cold. I didn’t want to be hypersensitive to her meltdown (usually a crying girl breaks me every time). The sobbing. The pleading. Inaudible words that came from her mouth. At that moment, it seemed like the best way to deal with the situation was to install strength in her while showing a deep level of compassion towards her. I helped her to her feet, brushed her off and kissed her forehead. I was nervous that if I hugged her she may sink into me again and I would never break free. I asked if I could call someone for her. I couldn’t leave her alone like this. If she could snap that quick, I was terrified that she would do something stupid if I had just left her there, like hurt herself. I was able to get one of her friends on the phone, told her briefly what was going on and she said she would be right over. We sat in silence and I waited with her until her friend arrived.
As time went on, I started to realize why she broke down like that. Her father had walked out on her when she was young. He too had sat her down and calmly explained why he was leaving. And of course it wasn’t until he actually began to walk out that door that the reality of him exiting her life actually set-in and she lost it. I can only assume that me leaving her in a similar fashion stirred up a flood of suppressed emotions from her childhood. I am thinking that her meltdown wasn’t even really about me. It was about her father. Or at least it’s more comforting for me to place blame on him instead of myself.
Daddy issues. From my experience, when a girl has "Daddy issues", 99.9% of the time it affects her adult relationships with men. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. So much so that I almost feel like asking potential dates if they have any "Daddy issues" before I get their number. If I look back at all the girls I’ve dated, every single one of the bad relationships came from girls who had "Daddy issues". And every single one of the good relationships came from girls who had wonderful relationships with their father. In fact, all of my long term relationships have been with "Daddy’s girl" types. I don’t mean "Daddy’s girl" in the sense that they were spoiled rotten, but I mean it in the sense that in their eyes, their father was the standard in which all other men were compared to. Now I’m not saying that a girl’s "Daddy issues" or lack of "Daddy issues" is the sole reason any one of my relationships either went smoothly or failed. I’m just saying that I adore a girl who adores her Daddy. To me that is a good sign. A very, very good sign. And those are the kind of girls I find myself wanting to be involved with.
I’ve always felt the importance placed upon a "father daughter relationship" is greatly overlooked in our society. And I’m sure much could be said for the "mother son relationship" as well. Despite the fact I take after my father’s side of the family (physical appearance, mannerisms, sense of humor, interests, etc), I’ve always been much closer to my mother. So much so that as a child when my parents fought, I thought that if a divorce ever took place, then I would choose my Mom to live with. People have always told me that I remind them so much of my father and my mother had always agreed with that statement. And I always took it as a tremendous compliment to be a spitting image of him. However, if a divorce were to have taken place (thankfully it never did), I wondered if my Mom would no longer love me either if I reminded her so much of Dad. It would be like living with a miniature version of him. Would she walk away from me despite the fact I wanted to stay with her? I too probably would have dropped to my knees and held onto her pant leg. I love my Dad, but choosing Mom just seemed like it would be the right decision. Because of the tight bond I have with my Mom, it shouldn’t be a surprise to me how distraught I feel when things aren’t good between us. I’m not sure why it’s really happening or what even started it, but the distance between us keeps increasing. This has been going on for a year now and needless to say, this makes me incredibly sad.
In the last few years, I’ve started to come to grasps that my parents are no longer young. Ok, well they aren’t exactly old either, but they aren’t getting any younger. And because you can’t stop, slow down or even reverse time...I’m feeling a little panicky. I can’t even talk about, let alone write about how it would feel to lose my Mom. That is a HUGE fear of mine. And to lose her while we aren’t on the best of terms, that’s beyond heartbreaking or devastating. Words could not describe the surge of emotions I would be left with. I think in life there are some rare things that people can’t recover from. That would be one of them for me.
Mother’s Day is this weekend. Last weekend I called my Mom up and asked if I could take her out to lunch for Mother’s Day and we could hang out or do whatever she wanted. She seemed less than enthused. So I asked if there was anything else she would like to do that day – someplace I could take her, something I could get her. She didn’t say much. She never really gave me any straight answers. I can take a hint. She doesn’t want to spend time with me, or at least that is how it appears and feels. I left the offer on the table, told her to let me know. Five days later and I haven’t heard from her. I talked to my sister about this.
Me: "I offered and she doesn’t seem interested."
My Sister: "Well, maybe she’s just tired?"
Me: "Ok."
It is then that my 4 year-old niece runs in and pulls on my pant leg. In her chubby little kid hands are her pint-sized pink knee pads, a set for her and a set for me. She asks me if I will ride scooters with her. I answer without hesitation, an enthusiastic yes.
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