Theme of the week – Values

What things do I value the most?

Honesty, trustworthiness, authenticity, and facing your decisions.

I know those are all closely related but they all stem from the insecurities I developed in life. I always told my oldest daughter that the one thing I can’t stand is lying. I prefer brutal honesty above all else. I can forgive the truth but I have a hard time letting go of betrayals. Yeah, you could even say that I hold grudges. I mean hell I’m a box of anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and depression….grudges kind of come with the package. Though, I must give myself credit, I have learned how to begin to let go of somethings. Separating myself from situations has allowed me a lot of time to process, heal, and recover.

And this nicely segues into something I was planning to write about. Being trustworthy, authentic, and facing your decisions. Once I reconnected with my father after 12 years I was scared. I reached out to him because my girls lost Chuck’s father in 2008. He never met either of his son’s daughters. I wanted my girls to know the love of a grandfather. Things were great for so long. He talked about selling his home and moving close to us. Then he changed his mind. Then he’d bring it back up and change his mind. Then last year he sold his house and moved out west to be near us. He bought a house and talked about all of the big family Thanksgiving meals, Christmas around the Christmas tree as the girls woke up to great surprises and spending weekends with grandpa.

It was great. His house would be the house the girls would have memories of growing up in…..and then his complaining started. He started imagining things wrong with the house. Things that the inspector and appraiser neither found. Things that certainly aren’t happening. We’ve been there numerous times and he’s tried to convince of these horrible things and they just aren’t. It’s a 1950’s house and has the things going on that a 1950’s house would but it’s a solid house. I would have bought that house if it weren’t in the town it’s in.

When we’d visit his behavior would be more erratic and more aggressive. He was drinking constantly. Complaining about his doctor not sending his medication which I later realized was opiates. During our Christmas visit he was screaming a lot, hitting his tables, and just behavior that seriously triggered a lot of things in me that I hadn’t dealt with in a very long time. Chuck said he could see the girls and me reacting in a very scared manner. Christmas day was great but the other days were just awful.

Then a few days into the new year he emails me and tells me that he has to sell his house and leave to go to Florida. He can’t live in that house. He says his doctor told him living in this area would kill him but he has COPD and keeps smoking so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that smoking with COPD is what will kill him but what do I know, I’m no doctor. *eye roll*

The worst part is he doesn’t call anymore. He hasn’t told the girls. I refuse to tell them. It wasn’t my decision and he should have to face his decision. He used to call three or four times a week minimum. I haven’t heard from him in a month. I’ve called him….but nothing from him.

Caroline does not deal well with change. She does not deal with people leaving her life. She is going to be crushed, though he does scare her when he’s violent. Caitlin still tells people about meeting her grandpa for the very first time. She loves family and what having family together means. She wanted these holidays and memories.

And he’s going to do to the girls what he did to me. He’s going to disappear and because he can’t face the decisions he makes he may just ignore us until he’s gone.

I’m fortunate for the time they did get to make memories with him but fearful for the pain they’ll experience knowing he’s going to go so far away. Florida isn’t exactly easy for the four of us to get to. He claims he’ll fly to see us twice a year, yet for the 4 years before he moved nearby he never attempted to visit, even when we only lived 9 hours away.

From all things I can figure, my dad has an addiction to opiates. For years I heard him discuss a medication he would get from a friend. I usually research shit but never would have figured he’d do that because his thing was always weed. Turns out he’s pill shopped for years for opiates and now that he’s out here the medical system he’s in doesn’t refill it as fast as he wants it so he asks friends to mail him some when they send him treats. He’s an addict and he doesn’t know it. And I don’t know what to do.

If he goes back to Florida he’ll be closer to the friend who provided him the pills before.

It’s a sad tale. A tale I hope my girls don’t let define them the same way his existence in and out of my life did define me….how I let it define me.

I’ll be there for my girls as they deal with this heartbreak but I’ll protect them from it ever happening again by him. I don’t do well with my babies being hurt by people they love.

So there it is, my most valued values.