I once knew a girl whose father had, when she was just a little child, left her mother one night without warning or explanation, who grew up to be a young woman that was always seeking that absent father. She sought him in bad relationships, where neither person could give the other what they needed, a sense of belonging and strength, not neediness and fear, and so soon they turned poisonous. She sought him in rage against her mother and bitter competition with everyone she met. And she sought him ultimately, in opiate bliss, which, she discovered, could take her away — but only for a few minutes at a time.
One day, her father came back into her life, as we say. “Came back” — but can something lost return so easily? Still, she was electrified, ecstatic, expectant, and a little afraid. At last, the thing she’d longed for all her life had appeared, just like that. A father’s love. Only it turned out not to be so simple. Something unsaid and unsayable stood between them. He could never understand her bad habits, and she could never understand why he was so unforgiving, distant, cold. A great struggle seemed to erupt between them, daily fights, nightly screaming contests, bitter anger, fury, rejection, passing one from one to the other.
More here – Umair Haque
