It Runs in the Family

Sometime around 14 years old, I began to really realize who loved me and who didn't.

Of course, I must remember the starry-eyed ex-boyfriend that found six new ways to crush every little bit of self-esteem that I had, just in the same way I must remember a girlfriend who made me question things in the best, best way possible. I cut out of my little cocoon, determined hands slicing through the silky confines of my childhood self.

It was probably most harrowing to realize my dad just didn't like me.

Now, without being hopelessly dramatic, this was not a new revelation. Dad had fit the perfect mold of the trying-and-caring father when I was no taller than his knee, spending days in the fairground, trailing through the woods, and sitting by the sea. It might be the picture I have of it, but if I think about it too much, I can still feel the spit of the sea against my face.

In a fashion typical for a man that runs on too much T and not enough empathy, dad didn't like it when my tongue grew with the rest of me. When I started saying no. When I argued back. When I questioned his world view that he fought so hard to drill into me because it was right goddamnit. He lost any sparkle in his eye dedicated to me once he took a good look at the girl who peeled the last of the cocoon off her new skin and stared him steely in the eye.

It runs in the family.

His dad, my late grandfather, was and always will be my favourite man that has ever been in my life. Even though he never got to see me flourish into an adult, passing just two weeks before my 18th, he knew more about me in the years that he knew me than nearly everybody else in my life.

It goes without saying, and it's hard to say without choking up, but grandad I miss you.

What did you do to dad to make him this way with me? With mother?

It runs in the family.

My mother is my best friend, and I just wish we reached this destination sooner.

My heart aches every day with the weight of what she's gone through, what she didn't have to go through, and all the time we wasted stuck on either side of an unforgiving man.

She holds both of my hands in hers and there's a look that washes over her face that warns me to be careful with them, that even though they can seem safe in the beginning, it doesn't always turn out that way.

It runs in the family.

When your father, your grandfather, your grandmother – have all clouded your judgment of love and what you must take to have it, it's no wonder that I'm left cold and aimless.

I have so much of it to give, and it pours out of my heart and into my palms, spilling through the cracks of my fingers. Sometimes there's so much of it I feel sick.

Many years later, things feel different. I'm in love, but I've never shaken off the fear. The hesitation.

What if they turn out like dad?

What if they change their mind when I grow?

What did I do wrong?

I'll never know the answer to these questions, and if I do, I'll be living them before I realise.

So I'll love, and I'll bleed, and I'll look after, and swallow my fear.

But I wish I could tell you it will be okay.