I’m not angry anymore//letters to ‘dad’

To my biological father,

Man, you missed out. Let me preface this with a quick statement: you are not responsible for or can take any credit for how amazing I turned out. That’s all me, mom, & God. With that out of the way, let me quickly clue you in to what you missed out on. I’m smart. I got good grades all throughout school, looove to read, and am basically a nerd. Harry Potter, lord of the rings, all that stuff. Speaking of Lord of the Rings, I love it so much I literally have a tattoo. It was my first, and it’s huuuge. And beautiful.  

 That’s upside down. But you get the idea. It was a birthday present from my boyfriend last year. But I’ll get to him later. I’m also amazingly kind. Kids love me, and I love kids. I can’t count the times someone’s told me I’m kind or sweet or compassionate. I haven’t let the crappy things that have happened to me ruin that. I love that about me, my kindness. I have a passion to help people, and I’m pretty good at it. 

I try to make it to warped tour every year. I think this year will be the fourth in the row. You probably think this has, in some tiny way, have to do with you. It doesn’t. That kind of music helped me get through more than I have time to recount. Basically, I’m also cool, by your standards, I guess. Shows are one of my favorite things in the entire world. Real sense of belonging and community at shows, which I needed growing up.

I read my bible every day. Pray every night. Go to church. I work every day on becoming a woman of God, and I don’t think mom could be more proud.

I have a full time job now. I just started a few weeks ago. I love it. I’m tired a lot, but I’m happy and I like my coworkers and the regulars that come in. I’m a hard worker, too. Every manager I’ve had has complimented me on it. I’m good with people, I catch on fast, I learn quickly, all that stuff. It makes me feel very accomplished.

My boyfriend. Oh man, he’s so great. We’ve been together for like 3 and a half years now, living together for almost 2. He’s the sweetest, funniest, most handsome, most caring guy I have ever met. He treats me like a princess, and he’s my best friend. I didn’t know love could look like this, and I am astounded every day at how lucky we are to have each other. I very much grew up thinking that what I have with him didn’t even exist. I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy. And I thank God every day for it.

I’m so happy with my life. And it doesn’t matter that you aren’t part of it. 

To the man who raised me-

Please don’t make the same mistakes with the girls that Joey made with me. You need to keep making the effort to talk to them and see them. The thing that hurt me the most growing up was that I was always the one who had to initiate contact first. It made me think that he didn’t care. I cannot stress this enough. Even if they are angry. Even if they don’t want to talk to you. It will only make it worse if you make them come to you, and you are risking the chance that they won’t. Don’t do that. For your sake and more importantly for theirs. I want them to have a relationship with their father because I know what it’s like to not have one and I may have turned out okay but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt thinking that I wasn’t loved by my biological father. Please. Stop making this about pride and think about how much you love them, because I know you do. But I know they don’t feel like it right now. Keep trying. Or they will never forgive you.