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In class I have learned that many of my peers believe your journey begins at birth. I feel a little different about this. I feel your journey begins when you are first able to remember your journey. I think it starts with your feeling, thoughts, and understanding of your situation. I have to say my biggest journey started when I was five years old, it was the day my daddy left.

I was at the age of five and my daddy’s little princess. I remember the day he left it was the beginning of my never ending journey.  I had a stuffed Jiminy Cricket from the movie Pinocchio. I carried my cricket with me everywhere, and he always slept with me. Cricket was my best friend. I remember my mom crying and I could not understand why this was. The next thing that happened was my Dad picked me up in his arms held me tight gave me a huge kiss and said, “I will be back, but daddy has to go now and I promise I will call you soon.” I knew then that he was leaving and at five years old I could tell it was for good. I started crying and my dad ripped cricket out of my arms and threw him on my bed. I of course went to dive for him and my dad picked up his suitcases and walked out the door. I was the orphan archetype, I felt abandoned and unloved by my dad. This was the start of my journey. I was going to have the call of forgiveness coming my way, and I would answer that call for many years until it finally hurt too much.

I would sleep with my mom every night after my Dad left. It was a terrible feeling I always had. I was so upset that I would make myself sick. All I did was cry and cry, because I wanted my daddy to come home. Each day passed and I never got a phone call that he promised me the day he left. He never came back he never cared. I would wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare of him leaving only to come back to reality that my nightmare was real. I no longer had a daddy who loved me. Now looking back I see how much my mom stuck up and defended him. She never wanted him to seem bad in my eyes, and I thank her for that. My mom was the better person for helping me try to see the good in a terrible situation. My mom was the caregiver archetype, she always tried her hardest to make sure I was happy and help me through this time when her herself had her husband walk out on her.  Many days went by before he finally called and wanted anything to do with me.

This is where my first call of forgiveness came. My dad called one morning asking my mom if he could see me. My mom, being the wonderful woman she is, of course said yes. When my dad came to see me I cannot express the way that made me feel. I was so angry with him, but at the same time I missed him and just wanted his love. That day he came into the home that he walked out on and beat my mom. She had many bruises. I remember standing there watching him hit her. I could do nothing but scream and cry. He was hurting my mom and it made me hate him more. I screamed, “Stop hurting my mommy.” several times and finally ran outside to find a place to hide so I did not have to leave my mom. I forgave him for not calling and I forgave him for letting me watch him beat my mom. When he finally found me he picked me up and threw me in his truck. To my surprise there was the woman that he left me and my mom for.

Still to this very day I will never forget the heartache that overcame me when I saw her. This was my mom’s best friend and I had no clue that this was the woman my dad left me crying and laying in a bed for.   I had never and to this day have never felt as alone as I did sitting in that truck with her and my dad. All I wanted was for the bad dream to end and me to wake up with my parents holding me asking if I was okay. This was reality and I had to face it. At the age of five you do not comprehend why someone leaves. You just feel alone, sad, and unloved. I felt this way because of the man that was sitting in the driver’s seat of that black ford pickup truck. After months of court hearings and custody arrangements my dad was to get me every other weekend.  When he did get me he dropped me off with my grandparents. I was never really with my dad after that. I was always like a chore to him it seemed.

I carried these feelings of hate and being unwanted with me throughout my life. When first grade came I would leave every day before noon. My mom would have to come get me because I couldn’t make it through a day of school without her. I worried about her leaving me too just like me dad. I also worried that if she did not leave me he would come back to the house and hurt her.  I still carry those feelings with me throughout my life now. For many years I always forgave my dad for being so mean and uncaring. I always allowed him to hurt me. For years I had to see a therapist because I was traumatized over my dad walking out.  I think it is time that I start calling him by his name throughout this paper. He is not my dad to me but a sperm donor named Craig.

Many other occasions had come up and happened while I was growing up that made me into the person I am today. He only wanted me when he wanted to play family or show me off. I was like a little trophy that you put on a mantle and just brag about. I never really meant a great deal to him. He made me into a person I wish I could change. However, that is a whole separate journey that I am on right now in my life.

As I got older and grew to understand this situation more it became harder and harder for me to be able to trust and count on anyone. To this day I still feel sometimes very unloved and unwanted. I am a very insecure person. Looking at me on the outside one would not think, but I have learned you can hide your true feelings very well.  I have carried these traits with me in each relationship I have come into. Not just with boyfriends but friends and family members also. I am always afraid that someone is going to walk out of my life. I carried this in to the relationship I am in right now.

I have a wonderful boyfriend who does so much for me. Deep down I try to think that I know he will never leave but I still question that. I feel that if my own father could not love me how can anyone else. I feel sometimes that I do not deserve to be happy or loved. I am insecure in many ways, one way being the crazy controlling girlfriend. I feel like sometimes I worry and get mad all because I am afraid of being left. I am the type of person who hates to be alone. I need someone with me most of the time.  I know that I make it very hard on my boyfriend sometimes. I try to push people away so when they do walk out of my life it will not be so bad for me to get over it. I feel like if I push everyone away I will not have to struggle to stop missing them. I am battling my fears with myself and the person I am. I am trying my hardest to change those traits in myself. It is extremely challenging, and I hope someday to slay that dragon in myself, but for now I just have to get to the top of the mountain of accepting Craig for who he is. If I could make up my own archetype for Craig it would be asshole! He would be an uncaring, selfish, rude, mean, miserable man. Who deserves nothing more than for me to hate him, but I just cannot. I want atonement from my dad you could say. I just want him to forgive me for all the wrong I feel that I have done. I just want him to love me like a daddy should love his child.  

When I was getting ready to go to college I thought to myself my mom raised me my whole life. All Craig did was pay my mom child support every month, and that was barely anything at all. So I said to my mom one day I am asking him to pay for half of my college tuition. I knew that my dad would have to talk this over with his wife, so I figured I would call her first.  I explained the situation to her about school and maybe not being able to go if I could get enough money. Her exact words to me were, “Well I guess you will not be going then.”  I was so pissed off I just hung up on her. So my mom and my stepdad and I sat down and figured out how much it was a month to raise me. With everything girls need it was 1,000 a month. That seems like a ton of money, but I have all the paperwork to show it. So I called her back and nicely told her that. She got off the phone with me and called Craig immediately. She told him I called her names and said that his money means nothing to me and many other terrible things I never said. Craig called me screaming, he said I was an ungrateful little bitch and if he was right in front of me he would beat that shit out of me. I was so upset. I had no idea what to do. I just sat and cried. My mom even cried with me, I could see it not only broke my heart he said such mean things but my mom’s heart was being broke too. She tried hard to make me feel better by saying she loved me and that she wished she could make it easier.

Almost an entire year went by without me seeing or speaking to my dad. My grandpa at this time was becoming very sick and dying. When they gave him two weeks left to live I knew I was going to have to see Craig. The thought of being around him was terrifying. I am so thankful for my boyfriend Adam. He was a trooper through the whole mess. When I first saw my dad I felt like I could not breathe. Adam knew I had that feeling, and when I turned to look at him he gave me that look like you can do this and I finally took a deep breath.  The next night my dad asked me to go out in the hall way he said we needed to talk. There was so much I wanted to say, so I agreed. As soon as I stepped out of hearing range from the hospital door I said to him, “I am talking right now you are not. You are going to listen without interrupting me. I think your wife is a cunt and I hate her. I think you do not care about me and your wife is a liar. She has ruined our relationship and if she dropped dead tomorrow I would cry tears of joy. She is nothing but a slut who stole her best friend’s husband and took away a little girl’s father.” For the next two weeks I had my dad back. He was my daddy. He held me in the hospital room when I cried and he made sure to comfort me. Adam kept telling me, “Courtney do not get your hopes up, cause when this is over he will be gone.” I sure as hell did not listen and after my grandpa was buried my dad was indeed gone yet again. I felt like that little five year old girl all over again. I let myself fall back in his little trap and hurt me. I thought I knew better. I then saw that I did not know better at all. I was hurting all over again and he was not there to pick up my broken heart. He was only there to smash it again and again.

It had been almost a year since my poppy passed away and Craig still is not a dad to me. Every time I see him out or he calls me I fall apart all over again. I just want that love and acceptance from my father. Deep down I know I will never get it. I have to face that my dad is not a good person.  The next part of my journey is realize that you cannot make people change they do it on their own. When my dad finally decides to change if I ever I hope I am strong enough to just say I already let you go like you did to me.

I understand that my journey is not your typical journey. I have yet to face my dragon or end my journey and begin a new one. This journey is my hardest struggle in my life. It is something I will deal with forever. Allowing me to write this paper helped me get a lot of feelings out. I am glad I was able to do this. I hope that I am able to slay my dragon and start to deal with the problems of my father. Until then I am still on my journey and I am struggling each and every day.