(1) Blindsided

Recently my father paid me a visit. He drove up to my new home - uninvited - sat down at my kitchen table, and proceeded to tell me the worst lies imaginable. Now, we have always been a church-going family. But there is a difference in religion and Jesus, and my father most definitely has always enjoyed showcasing the former. He raised his family to believe cutting hair, wearing makeup, and putting on anything but a skirt was a sin. I remember clearly the rude comments I received when I visited home for the first time with mascara on. I remember the degrading remarks he used to make whenever he saw the two or three friends I was allowed to see - they always wore pants. We stopped celebrating Easter, a "pagan" holiday. Halloween? Forget it, that's the devil's heyday. Vacation Bible school/Sunday school? A sin of the deepest proportions. (I know, I never figured that one out either. I think he told my mother one time it's because they used crayons and made crafts).

But on the day he came to see me, he told me it was never his idea to do any of this, that my mother had made him. He was only bending to her will, that she had always been a little crazy and changed her mind constantly. 

I was in shock. 

He told me other things, too, terrible things, but those are for another story. The point I want to make with this post is that I just watched someone turn his entire belief system on its head, deny he'd ever believed it, and call my mother's "religious ideas" craziness. Ideas, I must point out, that have always been his. He also told me he was sorry I had to deal with my mother all these years, he tried to protect me from her. (My mother is the only reason I escaped the situation with as little damage as I did. She put herself between us so, so many times). And then he told me he only came to tell me all this because she was insane and had suddenly stopped loving him, and he wanted me to understand nothing was his fault. He added that it would probably happen to my marriage, too, and I should be prepared. 

Before he left he told me I would always be his daughter, he was proud of me, and he loved me. I couldn't speak, I couldn't think. I just let him drive away.

I found out a few days later that he had gone back home, picked a fight with my mother, and told her she was the reason I was so messed up and my life was ruined.

After I recovered from the anger, rage, and shock that I felt, I blocked his phone number. I will not be going home anymore, or anywhere near Collins, MS. And if he shows up uninvited again, I will give him one chance to leave before I call the police to escort him out of my yard. 

I did not make that decision based on this incident alone. There have been a thousand more before it, and this one was the final straw. And as I said, he said more, terrible things to me. Lies that I knew were lies because I'm not stupid. I lived with the man. I know what really happened. 

Jesus promised to "make all things new again." I'm recently married, I have a lovely little house, and my life is coming together like I've always dreamed it would. I truly do feel like a new person. And the main reason for that is I've gotten out from under the shadow of a man who was my father but not my daddy.