My entire life I’ve felt vulnerable, as if at any moment anything that I cared for would be taken from me. I’ve felt as if anything that I believed to be true, and hoped for or relied on, would fail me. For a long time I’ve blamed myself for this.
My father would make promises to me that he could not keep. I would take these promises as assurance for the future. But, then my father would fall off the radar, become silent about what was promised, especially when it came time to deliver.
Finally, I would do something that my father could point to as a reason not to give me what he promised. Or, he would simply change the agreement so that he wouldn’t have to deliver.
I used to believe it was my fault, or that it just didn’t make any sense, that these failures would occur. Now, I’ve started to realize, even if I have a hard time not believing its still me that is to blame, that it’s been my father failing all along.
I don’t want to hate myself anymore for that fact that my father is a failure and that he is a liar willing to promise anything even when he knows or has fooled himself that he’s going to follow through. My father’s failure left me vulnerable in the world.
I’ve lived my entire life afraid of the future. I’ve lived my entire life feeling that what I believed to be true would turn out to be false. I’m so tired of being afraid. I’m so tired of always being in pain over not being able to make the future happen as promised. I have been cheated my entire life of having the chance to have dreams come true because I have been so certain they can’t be real that I constantly find ways to fulfill that failure.
My father has taught me a lesson of failure that I have learned so well that I can’t seem to shake free.