Letting Them Go

Letting Them Go

 

I thought this was going to only be about my dad until I wrote the title, and then I got goosebumps. Let’s start with my dad though. He raised my family as strict Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic, kind of difficult to describe, but bouncing around church to church if he found teachings he didn’t agree with and the pastor wouldn’t budge with agreeing with them. And he always seemed to be friends with the pastor. In short, he was a strict, rule-following, but narcissistic father who worked hard to provide for his family. In doing so, for most of our formative years, he was almost never around. That, I can easily forgive. Later, when he was around, it was always about chores and doing things “the right way” which was his way, and doing them perfectly.

I am trying to forgive him of all the ways he traumatized us as kids by explaining away his behaviors, but there are some things that I just don’t think can be explained away. I honestly haven’t worked as hard as I could have at not hating my father. But I am a grown adult now. It’s time I took ownership of my feelings of the situation. He no longer has control over me though his voice strongly rings in my head. I choose each day to somehow forgive him. I don’t really know what that means, but for now, I choose not to hate him. I choose to let him be his own person in his own state no longer affecting me. The same for my step-mother.

My biological mother…

She was the root of my distrust of everyone universal. We learned about villains in movies, but having someone you love die on you so young was when I developed a deep distrust for anyone who said they loved me. Just because they loved me didn’t mean they wouldn’t leave me on purpose or accidentally. And instead of choosing the side of acceptance, I chose the side of fear and mistrust. I knew everyone around me would eventually betray me, so it wasn’t worth it to get close to anyone.

But even her I must forgive and move on. I must forgive her for living in depression and passing it onto me. It’s been a difficult mental health issue to overcome, but I’ve mostly learned how to cope with it on a daily basis. She didn’t seek help. I have sought all the help I’ve known how to ask for besides groups which still scare me.

And I must forgive her, and the world, for my distrust of people letting you down intentionally or not. This is a much harder one. I’ve seen behind the curtain, and that’s just something that you don’t forget. But I have to find a way to deal with it that’s not building ten foot walls around myself. I have been learning very slowly that it’s okay that people are in your life for a short time, and it’s okay to be vulnerable in that short time. Someone, or it might have been a few people actually, told me in college that it was okay for that to happen, and I just laughed them off, because…no. But part of learning to not take people for granted is learning that time with people is short.

So thank you, mom, for the very belated lesson in teaching me that time with people is to be valued. And when they are gone, it is okay to take time to grieve, another thing I was never taught, but then you move ahead knowing that life has more in store.

Now I feel one tiny step closer to letting them go. They weigh me down every day, but hopefully today they will start weighing me down a little less.

Of whom do you need to let go and let them live their own life?