The soul scar

Be positive.

OK...I can do this.

Through exploring myself, I have found someone worthy of love, and I'm in the process of giving that love now. However, there are people that only know me as the loser, and changing their opinions is becoming a daunting task. I know that most of the information they have, I fed to them. I degraded myself, I let false assumptions live and never defended myself, because I truly believed, in my heart and soul that I was a loser. I was ashamed of myself, I knew what people thought and I agreed with them, although it wasn't the total truth, and they didn't have the whole story, I figured I deserved the "shame on you" looks, the eye rolls and the tsking of tongues.

But now, because I am falling in love with myself, I want more for me. I want to give myself protection, to save me from judgement, to stand up and stomp my foot and say "You don't have it right!" I want to tell my story to those few people that don't know me anymore, and let them at least have the full story before they decide to say mean things and off cuff comments about my character.

 I just don't know where to begin, I don't know how to tell my story without sounding like I am making excuses. I own my mistakes, fully. I don't need to be reminded of them, they are soul scar with permanent reminders. I don't need to be reminded that I hurt a lot of people, I don't need a reminder that I was selfish, inconsiderate and wrong. I live with my mistakes...everyday, and if it makes these people feel better...I hurt from these mistakes too.

The person that thinks I am a loser the most is my Dad. To this day he doesn't think I'm too much. He doesn't trust me with anything because I will probably screw it up. If I am late, it's typical, if I make any mistakes it's because I don't think or use my head. I am terrified of disappointing my Dad and because in everything I do, I disappoint him. I usually hide from him and try to figure things out for myself, I feel so ashamed when I let him down, because I have done so, so many times. I just want him to be proud of me, to assume I am thinking and using my head, that I am special and wonderful and a survivor...like him. I really think that now, I am someone he could be proud of, if he only knew me.

He doesn't know that I have done some pretty amazing things with my life, weathered some pretty harsh storms alone, fought for my kids, educated myself, been accountable to my children and repaired many broken bridges. I stood up for myself against many disasters, I did this without anyone to sound off to, without a mother, without a sibling and without a Dad.

I have a loving home, where my kids are loved and cherished even if they make mistakes, I have a loving husband that understands me and adores my kids. I work full-time with a large family and home to take care of and even though it isn't perfectly clean and orderly it is the best I can do.

 Everyday I do the best I can do.

I am someone to be proud of. I'm sweet, loving, caring, compassionate, strong, resilient and smart and it is a shame that the only surviving member of my first family doesn't know that....or may never know that. I'm too afraid to tell him that, because I'm afraid he will re-introduce me to the loser he knows, and I can't face that anymore. It crumbles me, makes my soul scars burn, makes me eat and trash myself to make his opinion true, and getting up over and over again is getting too hard. I want to get up and stay up this time.

I question why he can't see who I am now, and the answer is this, if he allows himself to see, my mistakes and the reasons why I made them, he would have to see his part in the whole story. He would have to see why I hid everything from him, why I ran away from him, why I searched for his replacement and fell short, why I'm afraid of his judgement, why I was a loser and take ownership of it and reconcile it within himself. He would have to see his own flaws, his own mistakes and the daughter he let down.

It is said that the people you dislike the most, are the ones that remind you of the things you don't like about yourself, and I can see that with my dad. He doesn't like seeing himself in me, so he lashes out at the reminder of his own mistakes. I am the only survivor of his mistakes.

 The past. The present.

I am his soul scar.

I wish I could tell him, that his mistakes are forgiven, we can just start over, love better now, talk now, forgive now and be the balm for each others scars. We have time to repair this relationship, but both of us are afraid of facing the facts and the impact, our mistakes made to each other. Maybe we both don't understand the consequences our actions had on the other person. Maybe facing that is too hard for both of us.

Maybe we can't fix our soul scars.

I wish we could.