The 25 Days of Healing

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The 25 Days of Healing

 In 27 days I’ll be 25 years old. December 1st marks the completion of 25 years of life for me. I started this 25th year of life with something I chose to call #The25DaysofMIKO where for 25 days I did things to make me happy. Being the “Broke College Graduate” that I was, facing depression from the embarrassment of unemployment and not Graduating Grad School with my Cohort, those 25 days weren’t as adventurous as I intended.

Fast Forward a few months and I started my blog Dealing With Daddy Issues as a way too vent about the way my complicated parenting was manifesting itself in my young adult life. Full-time employment rocked the flow of my blog a little bit, but recent life events encouraged me to tie in Domestic Violence Awareness. Then it hit me. I wanted to end year 25 the same…

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NUMB

I took my youngest sister to see the new PIXAR film INSIDE OUT over the weekend. Almost everybody knows I’m a big kid so I was probably more excited to see it than she was.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone, but let’s just say it gave me a better understanding of how I personally process and deal with occurrences in my daily life and how one begins to feel NUMB.

Fathers Day was Sunday and as I mentioned in my last post I don’t think I ever spent a single Fathers Day with my biological father. I went by his brother’s house where I saw him last, in March, hoping that I could at least say we were in the same room for Fathers Day. He wasn’t there.

I asked my uncle’s girlfriend if he had gone down south with his other brother for the weekend and her facial expression let me know that he had returned home, and by home I mean JAIL.

I so nonchalantly continued my conversation with her about how there must be A/C in jail (my uncle’s don’t believe in A/C) because he’s not ever out in the summer months. (I haven’t cared enough to notice that pattern; she pointed it out to me). I’ve become numb to his circumstances and lifestyle.

I’ve been hurt by other men in my life. Sometimes I cry. Most times I write, or vent to friends, but then I get numb; and it’s as if that person never existed.

Even the happy memories of them no longer fill me with JOY.

I looked back at some photos of me with Buddha, and tried to remember that I didn’t always think of him with such disdain. I was smiling in most of the photos. All of which were taken at least 15 years ago. Even seeing myself smile in photos doesn’t make me think of him in a positive light. But then again, you can’t really expect to feel consumed with happiness from photos you don’t remember taking with a man you’ve rarely seen in the past two decades of your life.

I don’t fear him.

I’m no longer angered by thoughts of him.

His presence doesn’t disgust me.

My memories of him don’t make me sad

and even photos plastered with smiles don’t help me associate him with JOY.

I’m

We ACCEPT the Love We THINK We DESERVE

Do I Deserve It?

21 Days ago I came home to an eviction notice. I was already struggling to get by and knew it was coming. My mother is facing her own hardships. My grandparents. Stepdad #1. My sister’s father. EVERYONE I normally depend on I no longer felt comfortable asking for help. I didn’t want to further disadvantage them because I hadn’t figured it out.

I never asked my biological father. He’s barely been out of jail one season and I didn’t want some heroic attempt to prove he cares about me to get him sent right back.

I’ve always been pretty independent. My mother said she always knew I wouldn’t stay local for college. But 21 days ago I began to drown. Alone. Independently. As more & more bills and shut off notices arrived and no income coming in. I even owed the LIBRARY money. THE LIBRARY!

29 days ago I helped my older sister handle a serious setback in her life. I lie beside her as she asked Step Dad #1 to tell her he loved her & that he would always be there to support her. In that moment I envied her because although I may have the burden & blessing of THREE father figures I never built that type of bond. I never developed a sense of security and trust in the efforts of one other individual that their words alone were enough to fuel me through a tough situation.

Today my last boyfriend offered to pay my past due rent. I’ve been very short and dismissive of him for months. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable asking for …He stopped me and said “You didn’t ask I offered. I still care about you. I still love you. I still have love for you, and I want to help.” We talked outside for a few hours because the bank and the rental office were both closed due to unrest here in Baltimore. Before he left he said “Next time someone offers you help ask yourself ‘Am I the type of woman who deserves help?’ do it”

It never dawned on me that I had somehow convinced myself that I was undeserving of his help. I didn’t want it because I didn’t want to feel as though I owed him anything.

As he drove off he repeated “Just ask yourself if you deserve help. I think you do and that’s why I’m willing to help you.”

None of my father’s ever made me feel like I deserved something I didn’t work for. My biological father bought me things because he thought it made up for time lost. Step Dad #1 did nice things for me because at that time we did nice things as a unit. My sister’s father initially did things for me to impress my mother and later as a reward for good grades, but not once do I recall them instilling in me that even when I couldn’t do for self I was deserving of a hand up.

Maybe I’m overlooking instances of assistance because I felt like that’s what parents are SUPPOSED to do. I do know that those four words got my gears churning. DO I deserve help?

Penned April 28th, 2015

Ain’t Nobody Got Time for Dat!

Ok, I’m sure most of you are familiar with Sweet Brown’s 15 memes of fame from a few years ago. Just like the people creating those memes there’s a lot of things I just ain’t got time for. One of them being ARGUMENTS.

In my last relationship I felt like we spent an abundance of time arguing over simple stuff because we really were having two different conversations.

Arguments are something I really just don’t have patience for. My sister’s father had a penchant for the art of arguing. If any man could make a mountain out of a molehill he was it. Just moments ago my mother called him to clarify if he was picking my sister up from school today. We decided to take a last minute road trip to surprise my aunt and my mother realized she hadn’t confirmed that with him. She called to make sure he was still available and to see if my sister had reached out to him to say, “Yes Daddy I need you to pick me up” or “Hey Daddy, my uncle’s picking me up so you don’t have to.” She believed she was being courteous and seeking clarity. I could hear him through her blue tooth ear piece preparing a case like he works for Analise Keating. Then my mother explicitly asked “Are you trying to pick an argument with me? Because I’m just trying to communicate.”

That was pretty much the summation of my adolescence; one person talking, the other unnecessarily escalating things. As I got older I realized my sister’s father wasn’t a bad dude, I just lacked the tolerance for his high octave shenanigans. If anything is a turn off to me, it’s a man raising his voice or carrying on in a conversation in the pettiest of ways.

My last boyfriend would come to my apartment and have an entire attitude if I took out my own trash or attempted to carry my own luggage to the car. “Why are you taking out the trash like I’m not standing here?” Why are we having this conversation? If it’s that big of a deal just take it out when you see it. Because arguing about who’s taking out the trash? AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!

Belonging

You remember that scene from Mean Girls when Gretchen tells Regina “YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US”? That’s one of my biggest fears. I have a tendency to make friends but not necessarily build friendships. I am personable and get along well with most people I meet, despite the setting. I floated between all those stereotypical high school cliques people place each other in without ever really belonging to any one in particular.

When your “friends” decide you don’t belong no more

This past Wednesday, Step Dad #1 called to invite me to his birthday party this summer. He said, “Yeah, I know it’s early but I’m inviting all my daughters….Ha!” There was something about that little laugh that followed his statement that made me feel…I don’t know, different. Out of his five daughters, I’m the only one that isn’t biologically his. As a child when he and my mother were together there wasn’t anything he did or said that made me feel like I wasn’t his biological child. Even for some time after their relationship ended he was very loving and inclusive of me. Once his other kids moved to Ohio, I had him to myself for a time.
Recently however, I find it hard to know where I stand. Step Dad #1 has four biological daughters, two of which I grew up with along with his son. Around Father’s Day in 2012 they all took family pictures together. I was in town. I had a white t-shirt. Since I’d always been your daughter anyway, why couldn’t I have been in the family photo? This must be how Sandra felt that one time in Season 1 of The Cosby Show when Clair asked, “Cliff why did we have four children?” Then Cliff responded, “Because we did not want five,” as if forgetting they had a whole other child away at Princeton.

Where’s Sandra?

Point being, no matter how many times my older sister texts, “Hey sis I’m at Daddy’s;” no matter how many invites to Christmas dinner I receive as an attempt to reintegrate me after years of being away; no matter how hospitable my “aunts” are; once he had his new baby, ending the seven+ year relationship he had with my mother, I got left aside. Then all of the people I felt familiar with and all of the places I felt safe in, I no longer belonged.