I once was your daughter

 

Individualism: the actions or attitudes of a person who does things without being concerned about what other people will think

What happens when we have our “click moment” with who we are? Many of us tend to follow in the footsteps of those who raised us, much from traditions or traits we have adopted from our loved ones; taught to the younger generations to carry on certain beliefs that our parents want to instill to us at a young age but what happens when we individualize ourselves and begin to go against but not insult what our elders enforced upon us? Not in a defiant manner but more so in the gratitude of finding yourself as time and experiences teach us lessons to who we really are, not what we were brought up to believe ourselves to be.

Let’s rewind about 25 years…jesus I’m freakin aging myself…I’m a chubby faced, blonde curly q’d, talkative and full of sunlight little girl ABSOLUTELY in love with my father. I watch videos of us when I was a toddler, playing air pillow or drums, the look in my eyes expressed how enamored I was by my dad and I was attached to him no matter where he went. He was a WONDERFUL parent at that time and when my parents split when I was 4, I clung to him even tighter to cherish every weekend we had together. He had always pushed me into pageantry, trying to get me into commercials and modeling with such pressure to my mother that it caused them countless arguments. He applied pressure on me as I grew older too, constantly making comments about my weight gain or lack of makeup and as I began my tomboy stage around the age of 10 (chopping off my hair and getting into sports) our relationship from loving father and daughter darkly turned to militant minded and chauvinistic . His compliments shifted to antagonistic and futile, causing me to rebel and protect myself from the harsh commentary he so often gave. Preteen, I began to doubt my worth, spiraling out of control that would later turn into a 10+ years eating disorder and while I can’t fully blame my father for my addiction to hurting myself, as soon as I started losing weight, his strident behavior lessened. I noticed a shift in his demeanor and when I started to put on make up in efforts to impress my father again, his adoration for me flourished. My teenage years we were inseparable…my father’s daughter once again, I did everything to the extreme when it came to my appearance. Although, even with the approval I had been searching for being given to me, the festering of my disease became worse and the addiction ran rampant on my soul. Even during the stage of my alcohol binges, my father was there to talk or at times even pick me up from whatever bar I landed in…I was at a point in my life where I was a degenerate in many people’s eyes but if you look at the photos of me, I was skinny and constantly wore makeup…this is key. During this time I still ran, which it seemed my father and I could bond over since he at one point shared a love for jogging as well, as it kept me in the slim “feminine” shape he so often commented on or bragged about how he was still trying to get his daughter into modeling yada yada yada. Even when the weights were thrown around a couple of times a week or I got my training cert, things were ok because it was more of a hobby than a lifestyle, and my body just became more toned, no mass was accumulated. Then I found my passion, my lifestyle, my outlet and EVERYTHING CHANGED. The pride he exuded, gone. The admiration for his oldest, invisible. The shoulder to bear, unstable. The man in my life…vanished faster then I could gasp a breath of relief and with a cruel reasoning why…because to him “he had a daughter, not a son.”

Fast forward about 5 years to yesterday and picture my “grotesque” muscular structure sitting daintily next to a frail man with pneumonia, battling cancer. Even with his strong-willed mouth and brute spirit, my uncle’s diagnosis was a pretty serious one to deal with. He’s a stark contrast to my father, a talented painter and free soul, my uncle never once greeted me with words other than “Hi Beautiful.” While brash with dropping the f* bomb every 5 seconds, his three daughters make him melt and he is one of THE BEST father’s I’ve ever met, next to my uncle Joe of course. They both go above and beyond for their children, once like my own dad, and with that change in my father has come a rift between the “brothers” as well. See my uncles are in actuality my dad’s best friends, who have been that way since kindergarten. I’ve never known them to be anything other than family, the cousins, just that…just like blood. We all grew up together, countless hours spent outside playing, nights spent listening to my uncle’s jam out on their instruments, all the girls wrapped around each other watching fireworks…These men all helped each other raise us due to all them being single dad’s and to have this opportunity along with my grandmothers as support have shaped me into who I am today.

I had some time alone yesterday with Uncle Jimmy and he knew from the anxiety in my hands what was going through my head…was my father going to show up. Of course he had been visiting his best friend, but I had told my cousins to keep an eye out for the stranger I once knew well. While I had come to terms with the fact that my father wasn’t going to be in my life anymore, it still racked my nerves to know after not seeing him for years, I would potentially have to bump into him under these grave circumstances nor did I expect the bomb my uncle was about to drop on me. As I sat there in support of his health, he offered his own, telling me the harsh details as to what my “father” has been saying behind my back but while he protected me on the specifics, he told me a summary in efforts to help me let go. He ended up telling my dad to leave that day in the hospital, after he couldn’t take my dad speaking maliciously about his own daughter and to think that my uncle had to enforce this while dealing with his all to recent cancer diagnosis was appalling to me. Back when my only male cousin Danny passed away, my uncle Jimmy actually got into a verbal altercation AT THE FUNERAL with my father because of how he was treating me, ignoring my existence and giving me the cold shoulder…AT MY COUSINS UNEXPECTED FUNERAL! Like come on here…let’s try to be semi fuckin mature.

I had become emotionless when it came to the idea of dad not wanting to be in my life because of what I place value on, but to speak about me so negatively hurts like hell because of the memories of me being a daddy’s girl. I rarely cry and twice this month I have shed physical tears because of two unexpected circumstances that hit my heart with such force it captured my breath into a fighting gasp for air. What makes this worse is that when my other AMAZING uncle came in (the passive, always jubilant, big Italian teddy bear Uncle joey) he solidified everything the other best friend told, just in a more cautious and less abrasive manner…typical of my bearded peace loving uncle. While each of their deliveries were different, both were protective and supportive of their niece and the ending resolution was that even though they didn’t know why he was so horrible minded to me, that it was in my best interest to stay clear away from him and just to cut him out…something I knew in my heart I had to do completely. I had done it to a point, only reaching out when I felt it necessary but now the pain of this was too much to bear because there was no rational for my father to not want me other than because I “looked like a man.”

I sat for a few hours talking with my cousins and uncles, but my mind was elsewhere and my heart lay as motionless as the patients in the morgue a few floors up. I put on a good front for my uncle, for who I had come to support along with my cousins and will continue to make the trip to see as often as possible because this is a time where they need me and honestly I need them too. I said my goodbyes, hugged my uncles for what seemed like an eternity and as I left, my uncle joey grabbed me and said somewhere in him he loves you…took everything in me not to cry. Joey is a special soul, a comforting one, who can read me easily and who saw the drastic relationship change between my father and I. When he hugged me, it was like I was holding the father I once knew because at one point, while they are all different in personality, their characters all mimicked the same honorable man.

I sat in traffic, festering these ideas and the typical Tina WOULDN’T HAVE REACHED OUT TO ANYONE but I vowed to myself that I needed to change this personality flaw and with that thought I called my mom…who I’m so VERY happy is in my life now. After I spewed the vulgar remarks that were made towards me to my mother, she just listened and told me how she could relate to that being that she was married to him for so long. Depending on the part of the conversation you invested your ears in, my emotions went from hot to cold, to disheartened to furious, to disengaged to hatred…and I’m sure everything in between. But she was just there for me, like my uncles were and that’s exactly what I needed since I already knew what had to be done.

I love who I am and what I represent, and not in a cocky, Im better than you way…no not at all. WHO I TURNED OUT TO BE, HOW I CHANGED MY LIFE AROUND, WHAT IVE BECOME from the seemingly hopeless, alcoholic, eating disorder, lost soul I once was to the confident, positive, cheery and full of faith woman I am today. I have plenty to work on but I refuse to change to make someone happy, even if that means cutting out one of the people who I grew up idealizing. I wish he could see the woman I grew into not the animal he sees that I physically grew to be. I wish he would find peace within himself so that he could find the love to give to me, for I miss my dad, the man who I once knew many years ago. It’s funny because as my uncle Jimmy laid complaining about a certain someone and their problems he was dealing with outside of his cancer conundrum, I sat there and thought…”my dad doesn’t want me in his life because I’m disgusting to him yet my uncle Jimmy time and time again goes out of his way for his daughters no matter what they physically or mentally do to him…”…go figure…I’m following my dreams, have no arrest record, I don’t sleep around, don’t party, keep very old school morals yet I’m putrid to his existence because of how I look…yet if I go back in time when I was a degenerate but looked like a skinny princess, he was a huge support system for me…got it.

While I’m not sure yet if I will contact him or not about this issue, I do know that I will continue to be there in support of my uncle and my cousins will keep a keen eye out for my enemy in arms. I won’t let him take away the joy of being around people who love me for who I am anymore, for I know that my uncles love me for me not some idea of me. He kept telling me thank you for coming but I should have really thanked him over and over again for what he did for me…love me.

Now the reason you are reading about such a sensitive issue in my life is to bring out the strength in you…that maybe you’re going through a personal battle due to someone trying to change who you are or what you look like because they are so unsatisfied with themselves that they enforce that negativity on the closest person to them. Find the will within yourself to go against whomever is challenging your individualism, your own unique beauty for that’s who you are and its a beautiful thing! I won’t ever change for a man, for a friend, for a bully on social media because I get the absolute pleasure of looking in the mirror at night and seeing my flaws mixed with my strengths and saying with COMPLETE satisfaction “I have things to work on but I am me and that is uniquely appealing.” If someone wants to try to change that or pressure me in any way to not be myself, feel free to open the door to hell so I can push your cynical ass out with a fuck you and best of luck.

There’s nothing more stunning than the belief in one’s own worth. It shines brighter than the glow of god, so don’t allow a cloud of someone else’s self doubt darken your gleam. I will respect my father but I refuse to manipulate my self worth again to have him in my life, for my looks shouldn’t be a stipulation on his love for the successful daughter he has.