It’s a strange thing when you realize your father went missing, years after the fact.

He went missing, but he never actually left.

Walking, talking, breathing, and yet he’d been missing for years. Because he never learned how to be there.

Now, here I am at 41 years old. Doing my best to learn how to be here, not for others but for myself. The product of a father who never knew how to love. So he could never teach it.

Because you can’t give what you don’t have.

My father was taught that love made you vulnerable. Vulnerability was a weakness and weakness was unacceptable. And that core belief was buried so deep, I wonder if he was ever able to see what it was and where it was coming from.

I don’t think he was ever able to see what a beautiful opportunity he had. The opportunity to heal. To give love. To receive love. And to bask in the comfort and warmth that love would bring.

Somewhere along my life journey, I began to see it. I am not weak. I am not unfixable. I am not to be locked away and hidden.

I have a beautiful opportunity.

But it isn’t as simple as reaching out and snatching it. Healing is elusive. Healing is the sword in the stone. There are a thousand old thoughts buried deep in my mind that will rise from the dead at the first hint of danger.

“They seem irritable. You must have done something.”

“It’s your fault. You need to fix this.”

“You need to leave before they hurt you. Because they ARE going to hurt you.”

“Run. Run. Run. Run.”

The pathway to healing is treacherous. Some days it would be too easy to go back to the man I once was.

The difference between me before and me now, is that now I know I CAN. And I want it more than anything.

We are not weak. We are capable.

We are not unfixable. We are healing.

We are not to be locked away and hidden. We are to be loved and celebrated.

I have been torn up and I’ve been called blind. But it doesn’t have to be that way any longer.

It’s hard to kill a heart like mine.