I was so relieved to get out of sixth period when I was a junior in high school. A friend of my family got me an after school job at your law firm. I didn’t care what I did, I just wanted to leave school early. I never felt like I fit in there. I watched other girls have boyfriends and relationships that I was terrified of. You knew upon seeing me that I was searching for something I’d lost as a child.
When I met you my first day of work you knew that I was struck by your magnificence, your passion, your danger. You could feel it. The energy flowing from me to you was electric. Everyone could feel it.
You were kind, gracious, humble and beautiful. You looked at me as though I was the most beautiful creature you had ever seen. I didn’t care that you were 18 years older than me…for some reason it made me even more attracted to you but I had no idea why. Onlookers viewed me as the teenager I actually was and thought it was a painful, adorable crush. You saw an opportunity.
It took time, but you were as patient as ISIS. You consistently told me how beautiful, smart and compassionate I was knowing how thirsty I was to hear those words. You knew the end game and would wait as long as it took. Each day that I came to your office you injected a tiny bit of poison in me. It was so slow that no one, including myself, could ever notice that I was getting sicker. I didn’t know that I had already been infected as a child from another one like you years ago. I didn’t know that my infection was lying dormant only to be awakened again by another of your kind. I only knew that I desperately wanted you to choose me.
The days passed and my infection grew worse. The poison accumulated in my body until I was completely infected. You asked me to stay after work one evening to help you. I was so flattered that you would ask me to work alongside you. What an honor. Was this it? Did you really choose me?
I trembled that evening prior to you taking me. Yes, I wanted you physically. Yes, I flirted with you mercilessly. Yes, I wanted you to pursue me and choose me. All of those wants fell away in the moment you entered me. I was afraid but at the same time I felt chosen. You cast the die that could never be removed.
I quit my job thinking that you were preparing to leave your (as you said) horrible, crazy, frigid wife to come for me. The reality was that I was put on a very high shelf. I was comfortable with the shelf but, still,I had no idea why. It’s not that it didn’t hurt or that I didn’t feel abused, but it was so familiar. Like returning home.
The years passed and you took me off the shelf monthly to assure me that I was the chosen one. That I was the one you loved. Pleaded with me to just wait a little longer for you while knowing all the while that I was never going anywhere . Just a little more time and you would be mine. I didn’t know why I actually felt safest being on the shelf. I didn’t know that you were a reenactment of someone I had already known. But you did. You knew.
It has taken decades for me to truly learn who you are even though I’ve returned to you again and again throughout my life. You are my father. You embody abuse, abandonment and the most dangerous place I could ever be. To this day I struggle with that reality.
I wanted you to be the father that would finally choose me. That loved me. That wanted me. You are not and neither was he.
I still have the infection. It is constantly waiting for me and desperate to resurface. I am getting better now because I know the disease is there. Recovery is slow and it is painful. I have help from one who knows your kind and what you are, however, he is blessed with the duality of accepting what he is and using it for good in a part of his life.
Goodbye, Father.