It pains me to admit that at nearly 40 I still want to be daddy's little girl. I want my father to look at me with that "apple of my eye" look. I want him to come over and unstick that window that just won't open. To help me get a Christmas tree. I want him to tell me he's proud of me when I get a promotion at work. And to help me manage my finances. And when I get dumped, I want him to tell me that no matter what I'll always be his little girl.
Now let me shock you by a factor of about 10 when I tell you that having never known my father, I am willing to accept one night stand understudies to fulfill this desire. My MO is to get very drunk at a bar and then to start auditioning men for the part. Actually it doesn't take much to get the part - he just doesn't have to walk away. And bingo, for a couple of hours, I am the most important thing in that guy's life. The drama ends when we go back to my place so I can be the only thing he can thinks about about for a couple minutes.
I like to call myself a love-child. My 16 year mother and 17 year old father met over the summer, away from home, and just as the summer was ending decided to have sex. Unfortunately, my mother didn't even know how to get pregnant. After she told him, my father made my mother get a paternity test which showed with 99% certainity I was his daughter. I think I met him once when I was a toddler but otherwise he has been absent.
And yes, I am a text bookcase of the girl who grows up fatherless. I take medication for depression and have attempted suicide a number of times. And so many one night stands. I have low self-esteem especially around men. I gave up a daughter for adoption when I was 19. I drink too much. Friends have given up on me for hopeless. I fall in love too easy, too early, and always with the most unavailable guy possible. And I'm divorced. But what the book doesn't tell you about me is that have a good job. I water my plants regularly. I take vacations. I make a mean triple layer coconut cake. I host brunches. I can make a gingerbread house with a Christmas tree in the bay windows.
Something happened to me recently though. I told my therapist that I wanted to stop sleeping with men on the first date. That maybe instead of sleeping with the guy, I could go have a piece of warm chocolate lava cake. It's like sex when I eat it, I said. He looked me and before he could get the words out of his mouth, I knew what he was going to say. Stop drinking. I couldn't. And as I started to tell him why I needed to keep drinking on dates, I think I had my first light bulb moment. I heard how lame it sounded when I said that I didn't think I could face a guy sober on a date, too much anxiety.
Wow. So I've decided to stop drinking for awhile and to close down one night stand productions. I guess it's time to grow up, to stop wishing I was daddy's little girl.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I find this extremely interesting. I've never known my father, and I have absolutely no desire for one. Never have. To me, growing up in a single parent family (with my dying grandparents who my mother took care of as well) was as normal as having two parents.
I'm terribly interested in the psychology of these things and am curious to the effects it had on me.
I'm glad you are finding ways to heal the wounds that this childhood gave you. What doesn't kill you... I hope you have a wonderful life full of self-respect and realize you don't need men to fill this void in your life. Although it can be fun, at times.
Wait. There. I found the effect on me. I'm the kind of person who is convinced you don't need a man to be happy and have preached it to all my heartsick friends and trying to believe it myself when I have the same problems.
Post a Comment