Yes, you were present. That is what makes it all so confusing!
Working through things courtesy of a text from my father.
(ETA: Today I didn’t have space for my laptop in my bag so I wrote this on my phone.)
I am going to be 100% honest. My default is to be fake because it’s so hard. I want to either not tell this part of the story (a trauma response I sometimes observe with other Black people too), or I want to paint a prettier picture than it is. It isn’t ugly either but it’s not pretty. It’s difficult.
I had a mini breakdown yesterday after rehearsal because that morning, my dad texted me letting me know all of the ways the he helped me over life, or was present, I mean. And then also my Director, I was so angry at how she’d tried to relate to me that I did so badly in class when she stood in to watch. I was and am still angry. So angry!
My Father
I don’t know what happened between us. Actually I do. I don’t understand it though because I have to solve for x for the truth. The confusion of my emotions betray me, so I can’t trust this answer, though my gut tells me the relationship is not healthy.
He was there at my dance performances as a volunteer when I danced at Ballethnic, when we had performances at the Robert Ferst Center at Georgia Tech. For the Urban Nutcracker. I was a Coca Cola, Snow, and Flower. When I was 17, 12th grade, senior. I had recitals at Atlanta Ballet here too. At the Ferst Center. Or you know, when he said he stood in line at 3:30am to make sure me and my younger siblings got to Marbut Elementary, a school outside of Atlanta that taught students using a Black cultural perspective too — I think I do learn best this way. It really helped me to bring both my identities together in a safe space I realize now. Or taking us to Stone Mountain Park. Going fishing. The laser show. Medical terminology spelling bees. He was present a lot. But I never said he wasn’t. I always said he was. I told him that’s why it was so confusing to call him out.
Just the same year I got to Marbut or within a year, he trigger warning: molested me. And that took me years to tell him that was wrong. 14 years and never was I protected. When someone hurt me, another Black man, for example, he did not step in to defend me as his daughter. And he treated my older siblings, from my mom’s first marriage, like an afterthought. You know that is wrong! The right thing to do is bring us all together as all of your children or else do not marry my mom. You should have done this because you don’t have to take care of another person’s children if you don’t want. But they do come with the package if you decide to be with my mother. Otherwise different treatment is unacceptable. I’m calling it out now dad. No.
And also I wish he had encouraged me as a girl/woman with an intellectual bent. I was good at the arts and the sciences, which are considered more masculine subjects. But why not see my acumen for this and encourage me in this direction too? Though this isn’t the issue as much because I can find encouragement hopefully now, just something I now see. And my girl wound is connected to the incident of abuse because it involved a “lesson” with my body. So I’ll get into this in another post. And for the last 10 years I had to pull away because of the lack of safety and hurt I experienced at his hands. And nobody cares but I care.
So his text was triggering but the silver lining is that it makes me remember memories that I think I have blocked off. Oh yes and I learned yesterday that my father has a Master’s Degree in Molecular Biology. This is wonderful. And that he studied Zoology and Chemistry at Fort Valley State University, I think an HBCU in Fort Valley, Georgia. I am proud of him for what he accomplished, especially growing up in segregation and not from an educated background. The first in his family to attend college. So it hurts me to face the fact that overall, it is not right. That when my mom dies, you do not check on your baby chicks to make sure their grief doesn’t toss them from the tree. You do not give respect to her as a person. Your former wife. The mother of your children, especially since she raised us as a single mom (though as I said you were present still). It’s really messed up. That really proved you are wrong.
Or birthday acknowledgements. Graduation acknowledgements. You met my professor on May 15th, but where is my celebration? Something even just something that says congratulations, good job. No acknowledgement — why not? For any of us really. I am piecing my confusion together.
And with him being present in the times he mentioned, he had years before trigger warning: molested my older sister too. Both of us at 10 years old. So I do not take this. You cannot tell me what you did when I acknowledge this. I am telling you to get help for being a predator. To apologize to my older sister, your stepdaughter. You apologized to me but that is not the same as action toward better. Overall it is unhealthy and I am taking our story today hopefully forward.
You know, I should be able to talk to you about my Director. You are African American and you should be the one giving me advice, support, protection on how to navigate a space where someone has tried to offer advice but it was all off. You should tell me that telling someone to “lift themselves up by their bootstraps" no matter how well intentioned is misplaced out of context. You like the Tuskegee Airmen and Tuskegee University. Be my father, you know.
You should be telling me to pay them no mind when they diminish my struggle by telling me that it’s not always about race and that privileged girls have issues too, when I open up honestly about my experience being me, a Black girl/woman with my particular background. You should tell me that an Asian or White person — or one who is both — who grew up with certain privileges will be off base most of the time and will have a Max Capacity that does not get it. How am I supposed to navigate this? Tell me!
I would like to be able to talk to you about my trigger warning again: abortion. That was my mistake but influenced I realize now by your harming me. That is another article too. Or maybe it is something to talk to Mom about which I did but more articles…so much.
I want to go now. I don’t have energy to blog anymore since my emotions are now raw on this page. I have used up my power and need to recharge. And heal the girl wound to be able to maximize my potential to access both the right and left sides of my brain that had been stunted through trauma.
And to protect the youth. We must love and protect the youth, even as I get older and am faced with this difficulty as well. But my girl self will always be with me. Hence the term I always use, girl-woman. Don’t know how to grow up really. Ok. I will finish about my Director in another post, while maintaining privacy because I still respect them but am still angry!!!!!!! After my emotional well can refill. Thank you for reading.
