Valentine's Day and other things

It is really hard for me to write on this blog. The idea was that I could express all the things I want to say but just cannot. I am finding it hard even to do this in writing. This is not supposed to be some great literary work. It is supposed to be raw, real, and just whatever I am thinking at the time.

It often seems like I need to give background information to whoever might read this so that they will understand what it is I am writing about. I doubt anyone will read this, so perhaps it does not matter. The thing is, I'm pretty sure there is too much background information for one post, so I have come to the decision that I will not give background to get this started. I will write about what is happening now and let the details get fleshed out as I go. I spend so much time feeling like I hide. Trauma will do that. I am not going to hide any longer; I am going to write.

Valentine's Day is a tangible display of my life; if you took all days and squished them into one, Valentine's Day is that day. It is all the good, all the terrible, and everything in between highlighted for a brief 24 hours.

Valentine's Day is supposed to be, in the tradition of Hallmark, a day to celebrate one's love for their sweetheart. Valentine's Day, for me, is overshadowed by the fact that it is my father's birthday. Every year I think of him. Every year I love/hate him all day, to a much more heightened amount than on a typical day. Every year I want to make my husband feel special, loved, and appreciated and every year I feel drained and have to truly force myself to leave my dad in a dark corner of my mind (where his voice never shuts up) and try to keep my husband out in front. This inner-tension is truly crazy-making, not only for the people I love but for me.

These feelings are heightened on Valentine's Day, but I feel them every day of the year. The desire to be a good wife and partner, the shame that the woman I want to be is in chains that I cannot seem to unbind. Chains built by me as a little girl for protection, that are now so strong that they seem impossible to break even though all they do is hurt. The chains are like superpowers gone awry: I can disappear from a room without going anywhere physically. Everyone can be talking and I won't remember anything that was said. If I am triggered, I disassociate and turn into what feels like a whole other person. When there is an argument I often do not remember what it was about or what was said. Before any of this happens, I use the first line of defense: be the person everyone wants me to be. Now, there is a disclaimer here. I do genuinely want the best for all people. I love to help others. That being said, the first line of defense muddies up the waters a bit. The first line of defense consists of being the perfect kid, with good grades and good behavior. That doesn't work forever, so the next plan is to be good at sports (swim team in my case). That doesn't work forever, so I decide to be bad, which isn't hard because by then (15-16) I HATE everyone in my family anyway. However, being bad no longer feels good, so I decide to go back to perfect. But I can't ever go back. I was never there. This desire to be all things to everyone puts an incredible and impossible amount of pressure on me that is insurmountable.

I remember wanting to kill myself when I was in the fourth grade. Laying under the piano bench in my family den, just wanting to disappear and never come back. I remember my mom being gone a lot around that time. She went back to college when I was in 2nd grade to become a teacher. We lived in South Dakota and my mom went to Weekend College at Augsburg in Minneapolis. I want to be proud of her for going back but I hate her for it. Her absence left my sister and I vulnerable.

My dad was so many things. An alcoholic. A victim. Hard-working. A brilliant businessman. Abusive. Conflicted. Politically active. Community-minded. Alone. A leader in the town, the church, and in his field of work. My dad molested me for years. And no one stopped him.

Every Valentine's Day I remember falling on our front stoop when I was 10. My sister and I were running out to greet him as he came home from work, to tell him "Happy Birthday." I slipped on the ice and had to go to the Emergency Room, where I got stitches. My only take-away: I ruined his birthday. It is the only one of his birthdays I can remember.

This year I went out the night before Valentine's Day with a friend. We went out to this show at a local venue that a couple of friends were playing. When we were there, after midnight, one of the friends pointed out that it was odd I was at a rap show with all these people as the clock hit midnight and it became Valentine's Day; I can only assume he wondered why I wouldn't want to be home... I wanted to scream. I think that no one could possibly understand why I wouldn't want to be at home, but the truth is that the last place I want to be is vulnerable to my own brain on that day. And even with my husband, I am vulnerable. Not that it's his fault, it isn't. But memories come back when I least expect them. A sound, a feeling, a smell, any of these things will trigger me. And the memories change good things to bad quickly. I don't want to associate my husband with bad things, so I don't want my mind to go there. And on Valentine's Day, my mind goes there.