Daddy's Girl

   I was a rarity during my childhood. In fact, I'm pretty sure, that in the 70's and 80's in my small town, there might have been only one other child whose parents were divorced to the extreme. Let me explain: divorced to the extreme means that one parent is completely absent from the life of the child... at least that's how I viewed it. I was one of those children. 

   My dad pulled the disappearing act when he found out my mother was pregnant with me, but that's 44 years in the past. I want to talk about today... I want to talk about the phenomenon of the absent father. So this blog post goes out to all of the men, young and old, who are choosing not to participate in their children's lives... I say choosing because that's what it is, truly. A choice. 

   I am a daddy's girl. Not in the traditional sense. I didn't force my daddy to help me put diapers on my baby dolls. I didn't make him have tea with me. I didn't ask him to teach me to shoot a bow and arrow. He didn't make my prom date come in and meet him and shake his hand. I didn't look lovingly into his eyes when he saw me for the first time in my wedding dress... I didn't hesitate to let go of his hand at the end of the aisle. I never saw the tears in his eyes when he held his first grandchild. I wasn't with him as he passed into the next life. But I am a daddy's girl... all the way.

   My first instinct is to never trust anyone, especially men. My husband must be part saint to put up with me... I have NO idea how to relate to men. I have no idea how to let a man love me. I have no idea how I am supposed to be treated by a man... go through college with that in your suitcase, ladies, and you will rapidly learn that the daddy deficit in your life left you coming up short in so many ways. I am a daddy's girl. 

   I don't know how to honor a man. I'm bad with authority... really bad. It's not easy to hold down a job when you have a problem like that. It only took me forty years to learn how to deal. There was no father to tactfully and delicately show me that the job of a man is not to control and contain but to protect and encourage. I am a daddy's girl.

   I never went down this road completely, but there were plenty of times that I started down the road where all of the stops are leaving little pieces of yourself with any man that will have you because you think that physicality is love. It's the stray dog syndrome: If you feed me your leftovers, I will stay because I don't know what it is like to be fully loved with freedom and compassion and respect. I am a daddy's girl. 

   That's not what this post is about, though. It has taken me 44 years to get to a place where I can forgive and move on... where I can find other examples to follow. And I had an amazing father-in-law who taught me so much by his examples of compassion and quiet strength that I consider myself semi-recovered. This post is to all of those "baby daddies" out there, especially young men who are creating an entire generation of daddy's girls just like me. I want to tell you what you are doing to that little person that you created. 

   You are teaching her that men are the enemy. You are teaching her that she is not worth the time of the man who helped create her. You are teaching her that you don't have to love or respect a woman to father a child. You are teaching her to not trust anyone. You are teaching her that men serve no purpose but to hurt and leave. You are teaching her that there is no one she can rely on, that she will have to do it all by herself, that she is nothing special, that she is your living, breathing, walking mistake. 

   It takes two to tango... that's what my mother always said. She would never say a bad thing about my father, never. But it doesn't take long to learn who is there and who is not.... who is taking care of you and who is not... who is dependable and who is not. And young man, middle-aged man, old man... if you fall into anyone of these categories then you are taking the life of your little girl. Your blatant disrespect and disregard for her mother, not matter what the circumstances, is interpreted by your little girl that you don't care about her and if you, the man who is half of her, doesn't care about her, then no one will and why should they. You will ultimately be the reason for her failed relationships, for her fear of trusting, for her desperate reaches for love. And the chances of you becoming a grandfather sooner than you planned are greatly increased because of you. Because if she can't get the right kind of love from you, she will confuse the wrong kind of love as something that is better than nothing. And realize, in that statement, you are the nothing. 

   And as if that isn't enough, let me leave you with one last thought: You are the physical representation of how she views and relates to her heavenly Father. Whether she trusts Him, rebels against Him, has a relationship with Him basically comes down to you. That's a lot of pressure, isn't it? And none of that crossed your mind when you looked longingly into the eyes of the mother of your child, someone else's daughter, and made your choice. 

   It may sound like I am pointing blame. I am. Believe me when I tell you that this is temperate to what I would say to a young woman who won't be a mother to her child. So I will leave you with this: You have two options when it comes to being a father: Be the joy that she has now, train her and show her how to love herself or you can be the pain that scrapes her as she tries to squeeze through life later. You need to decide now and take responsibility now for what you are doing or have done. She is your daughter, she is your flesh and blood; don't blame her for your immaturity and selfishness. Don't make her pay for it with every relationship that she tries to have. Don't turn her into THAT daddy's girl. 

The Eye of the Beholder

   I just looked at three pictures of myself taken in the last week. In each pic I'm wearing a dress and each one of the dresses are too big... like WAY too big. And yet when I bought them I tried them on, a couple of them just a couple of weeks ago, I was convinced they fit perfectly. I maybe have lost a couple of pound of winter weight since I bought them, but not THAT much weight. I just realized that I default to the biggest size I can find because all of my life I have been convinced that I am the biggest person in the universe... or possibly that I am as big AS the universe.
   I am always my worst critic. While other female friends will pop the leg, put the hand on the hip, turn to the side and do the goose-neck in order to take the most flattering picture they possibly can, I just flop into the picture because I know for certain that I will look fat and that I am not attractive. After the picture has been taken, I am seldom if ever anxious to see myself. It's not that I don't care; I just don't want to be reminded.
   I don't have low self-esteem. I really don't and I know that I really don't anymore because I used to. One time, in college, I convinced myself that if I could just lose a few pounds I could make someone fall in love with me. Here's a progress report on that: it didn't work. I was once told that I would be so pretty if I would just lose a few pounds. My reply was this: Are you sure of that? Because what if the chub is holding up the best of my physical qualities? What if I lose weight and I'm ugly? Or according to them, ugly-ER... How much would that suck?
   I have diabetes, which is under control. I have high blood pressure as a result of my pregnancy. I have fat that is never going to go away because I have PCOS. But I am strong and I am active. I am relatively healthy and despite the fact that I am surrounded by beautiful, young ladies all the time, I manage to keep myself from flaking out about every little flaw I find without and within. That's healthy, right? I'm in a good place.
   Then I found myself doing something very, very, very questionable. More questionable than that 3D fingernail art phase... I googled the following question: Can fat people be pretty?
   I had no idea that I was so controversial because EVERYBODY and every BODY, including, oddly enough, the late Leonard Nimoy, had an opinion. Obesity is an epidemic, fat is where it's at, skinny guys love the chubs, Zaftig fetish, get in shape, your body is shameful, looking for fat chicks who party... But the one that really got me was Leonard Nimoy who evidently did a whole series of photographs of large naked women... dancing... naked. Beam ME up, Scotty... what the hell was up with Spock? I mean, he was like a twig, am I right? All angles and bones and hard corners. And he surrounded himself with all of that flesh. That blatant, in-your-face, cankles and rolls FLESH. Such an odd contrast.
   And so now I am absolutely flummoxed... I just spent $16 on a lipstick from MAC. Did I do it because I felt like I deserved it or because I felt like I needed it? And I have all of my dresses planned out for all of the graduation stuff coming up, but now I feel like I should try them on in front of someone who isn't me because even though they go over my head, arms, waist and hips, that evidently doesn't mean that they FIT?
   Have I tricked myself into a false sense of self-esteem all of these years? Do I really not like myself at all? Have I spent thousands of dollars over the past 20 years on someone who should have just bought clearance rack MuuMuu's and stuck with the clunky FloJo sandals I had in college? When I think of all of the money I've spent on trends and fashion and shoes and make-up and haircuts and hair dye and jewelry and all of that other junk and weigh it (no pun intended) against what I got out of it, was it all worth it? I don't get called "beautiful." I'm never "the pretty one" when I'm with a group of friends. The only reason I turn heads is tripping or thinking I'm whispering when I'm not... Was. It. All. For. Naught?
   This crisis of self-assurance lasted for about 30 seconds. It was not all for naught. I never did any of those things to get attention or approval because, quite frankly, I have never needed either but have been cursed and often avoided by one and/or both. Figure that one out... I buy what I like, evidently no matter how big it is. That is easily remedied... I'l just stop buying the stuff that feels like pajamas. And it also dawned on me that the reason that I don't like having my picture taken is because I don't like having my picture taken. I have resting sad face and, conversely, a really goofy smile where if I smile without showing my teeth, my eyes disappear and if I smile and show my teeth I looked like a deranged gila monster... And just so we are square, I am absolutely 100% aware that I am built like a potato on toothpicks. It used to bother me but my solution hasn't worked: gaining weight in your legs is hard, almost as hard as losing it in the rest of your body.
   So what is the point of this little self-induced Come To Jesus? I know there are many, many, many people out there who are displeased with the way that they look. I know girls who won't have their picture taken unless they are standing in the very back at a 30 degree angle while the sun is at a waning position and the wind is blowing from the south only. Stop that crap. It's really annoying. Remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so behold yourself every once in a while. Oh, and live long and prosper. You rock, Spock.