I Don't Know What to Say...

My dad died in May of 2004.  He had been in a car accident and lived for three weeks after it.  I had things I wanted to say to him but I did not know what or how to say them.  We never had a relationship like that...so I said nothing.  Even when we went to visit him on his death bed just days before he died, when he was in a coma and couldn't even respond, I said nothing.

My father was an alcoholic.  I didn't realize it until I was 8.  When I was 8 years old, I went to spend the night at a friends house and asked her why her dad was not at the VFW like mine was.  She looked at me funny and said her dad doesn't go there.  Apparently her daddy stayed home with them on the weekends.  It was then I knew my family was different.

As I got older, I stopped having friends over to my house.  Things got worse...I won't go into that.  No one knew how bad it really was and my friends certainly could not know.

I kept a good outer image up...always have.  Best at everything I ever did...all on the outside.

My mind races all the time.  Trying to not let the past interfere but I haven't figured out how to not let it happen in the moment.  I feel like I am still 8 sometimes and realizing that life for me is not what it should be...I wanted what other little girls had...I wanted to be the little girl whose daddy tells her that he loves not the one whose told her to go away and die.