How I Forgave My Father

The Authentic Eclectic

Forgiveness.

For some of us, this word is the epitome of self-indulgent toxic positivity. For others, it might bring peace and serenity. That person isn’t me.

I can see you now, visualizing that dreaded memory in your head and you’re either smiling or seething mad that I’m even bringing this up. How dare she.

I once found myself having to forgive my father on a daily basis because I was offended on a daily basis. So the question became, why?

Why did I feel so much pain and resentment towards this man who has done so much for me and continues to exhibit his love for me in various endearing ways?

Expectations.

The expectations I had for what a father should do and how a father should react to my thoughts or behave in public trumped my understanding of or even wanting to understand who my father actually was.

The truth is, I couldn’t see him, because I had not yet recognized the ways I had suppressed who I really was. And in many ways, my father was an exact mirror of the quirks and personality traits I had so cuttingly judged and hated for far too long. Traits that I couldn’t possibly understand unless I lived in his body through his experiences, until now. And the fact that I hated them so much only separated me from the very people I most needed to learn to love in this world. People who often need love and acceptance the most in that moment.

I thought my father was a narcissist because I couldn’t understand his defenses or his responses, which were all too similar to my own. But he wasn’t a narcissist. Far from it.

In order to forgive him, I had to see him. And in the past year, I finally saw my father as if I were daddy’s little girl again. As if for the very first time.

I saw the man who loved my mother with everything he had until she began to push him away. And so began their dance. The most beautiful dance I’ve ever seen, because it brought me into this world and turned me into the person I am now. A dance that brings them back to each other time and time again.

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