Past vs. Present

I wonder all of the time how the events of my past have effected my present.  I wonder the impact on my decisions, relationships, parenting skills, and overall well being.  My life changed dramatically when my dad died 8 days before my 15th birthday.  Since then I feel like my life has been spinning out of control.  I now realize that I continue to try to fill the voids in my life with allot of things and people, whether they are good for me or not.  Then I question, what are these "voids" I talk about in my life.  The void of unconditional love?  The void of security and safety?  The void of success and happiness?  What is it?  I try to soul search and look deep inside as far back as I can go but I mostly see darkness with little memories of childhood.  A therapist once told me that I can't remember these things because I blocked them after my dad died.  The theory was that if I don't remember things with him in it then it will make it more like he didn't exist, then it will hurt less.....Poor decision on my part, now I can't remember and it still hurts the same.  The love between a parent and child should be filled with compassion, empathy, kindness, as well as frustrations and anger at times.  However that anger should never overpower the love. That's how it was for me and my dad.  Even when he was mad at me or I at him I knew he would never stop loving me.  I knew I could go to him for any reason and at the end he wouldn't let me fall on my face (or at least he'd pick me up after I fell).  In his mind falling was sometimes a lesson of life in itself. The day that my anger got the best of me was the day that I lost myself and my father.  You don't realize how powerful the words you say to others are until they aren't there for you to say I'm sorry.  Is this the "void" that I am missing?  That unconditional type of love and support from a parent that I missed after his death?  The need to be accepted by my parents even when I fall on my face?  Who am I missing this from, my dad, my mom?  Yes my mom is still here, yet I'm still missing this in my life......that may be enough said there. 

I tell my children everyday that I love them.  Even if they push me over the edge I find myself empathizing for them and how they are feeling or what they are going through.  This allows for forgiveness and allows us to move on.  I try remember my dad telling me that he loved me and that's about all I can try to remember, as he was the only one that ever told me.  Is this another void for me?  The desire to love others as I wished that I was at one time loved or as I wished another might have loved me as he did?  Is this the drive for many of the decisions that I've made about others that I have allowed in to my life?  Accepting others flaws and thinking if I love them enough that they will want to change.  Boy was I misdirected in that belief. 

My past is full of loss, heartache, anger, remorse, pain, hurt, some happiness, and some sadness. However the negatives listed overpower the positives significantly.  The lost of my father and my first husband put the dent in my heart, soul, and mind about love, men, and loss.  The continued abuse by men in my life as a teenager and as an adult has continued to evolve into a fire that has gotten out of control.  Settling and believing that I can't do any better, or believing that it wouldn't happen again or he didn't mean it.  I took the passion that I wished I was strong enough to make changes in my life and made it into a passion to help others and educate woman about how to find healthy love and relationships.  Could I be anymore of a hypocrite?  Educating people how to work with challenging situations in their lives or how to parent to the best of their ability....again what a hypocrite.  When my life got the most difficult and dangerous I hid behind my work instead of facing it head on.  What made me see all of this?  Not counseling that's for sure.  Time? Hitting rock bottom?  Loosing my livelihood again? I would say all of the above.  Trying to replace my father and first true love and husband for years in unhealthy and abusive relationships.  Allowing myself to be abused physically, emotionally, and , mentally for years.  Hiding behind my work and loosing the strong relationship that I held so dearly with my children.  These are the things that I allowed my past to haunt and impact my present.  These are the things I have grabbed a hold of and am working so hard to take control.  My first priority of course is rebuilding my relationship with my children.  I also believe this to be my biggest challenge. Yet I also know that if I don't change myself inside that my relationship with my children won't be as strong as it could be. 

I also know that my past made me strong in other ways.  It gave me the ability to help others through my own life experiences.  Through the traumas in my life I was able to empower others to find their way out of their unsafe or unhealthy lives.  saddness.  Take my life from here on out one day at a time and focus on the overall goal, which is peace within myself and within my life that I hope to live for a very long time.  Pain, heartache, anger, and death are no longer an option.