Dreams of My Father

I dreamt about my biological father last night. It was odd, because I haven't dreamt about him in a while. I felt so many different things in that dream. Feelings I've been suppressing in the waking world.

We had moved into our new apartment, in my dream. And somehow I happened to see my father in a window across the way from my apartment. It was kind of "Rear Window"-esque. I felt like I was staring at him through binoculars. Realizing it was him I practically flew out of my apartment to his. Only to suddenly be in a hotel room.

There he was. As I remember him, a seven year old's image of her father. He is so romanticized in my mind. To me he will always be the handsome man who picked me up off the ground when I fell from the monkey bars and got sand in my eyes. The guy with glasses, and a great mustache, who was constantly filming me and my brother, photographing my mother, even though they were no longer together. The man I adored and thought was amazing, a god with flaws. I wish I could've saved him. I wish we had been enough.

There he was. My father. In that moment I felt a surge of love for him. With a small aftertaste of hate and realization. He hugged me. I told him I was getting married. He cried. I cried. I told him how much I had missed him. How much I wish I had never sent that letter. Never said the things I said. He forgave me. I forgave him. He was going to do the one thing I've always wanted. He was going to give me away at the ceremony for my wedding. He was going to dance with me, that father daughter dance that I'll never actually have.

I think part of my subconscious realized this was a dream, because I felt a surge of pain. A trembling in my chin, that trembling that always preludes a gut-wrenching cry fest.

He told me that he had been released. Released from the drugs, prison, etc. He was a free man and he was going to be there for me. He offered to help pay for the wedding. He offered to help in any way he could.

Then he disappeared. In a split-second I was talking to my mother. Telling her the good news. Telling her how excited I was. About the crying that we did. About the hug and the forgiveness. Then she tells me that he had lied. That he had escaped from prison, not been released. That he was on the run. Now he would never be able to do what he had said he would. Now he could never fulfill his promises. He would spend his life running. From the addictions, from the law, from his empty promises and his guilt. I truly believe he feels guilty.

And I felt that moment of realization again. The moment when I realized that he would never be able to keep his promises. Just like when I was seven and I made him promise he wouldn't do drugs anymore. And he promised. I think he meant to keep it. I'd like to think he really tried. I'd like to believe that he loved me enough to give it a valiant effort. But what am I compared to methamphetamine? What am I compared to cocaine and heroin?

I've never been so heartbroken upon waking from a dream. I have a damaged relationship with a father I've always worshiped and no real way to fix it. I think, as little girls, all daughters have this kind of romance with their fathers. Not the sexual kind of romance you find in smut novels or internet porn. Not a romance in the traditional sense. We have a love for our fathers that is so deep that it colors our entire outlook on men.

Our father is our first introduction to the world of men. He is our first husband, our first boyfriend. He is our first guy friend, our first impression. We romanticize him, even if we never knew him. Even if we have a bad relationship. Because in many ways we want him to be wonderful. It gives us hope for other men if our father is a good man.

I see the similarities between my father and my ex-boyfriend. I see the parallels between my relationship and my father's relationship with my mother. I see the parallels with my current relationship. I see the parallels with all my male interactions. I have always been so desperate for a man to love me. I have always been so afraid of the men around me. Not because my father abused me, but because I always felt like he abandoned me. Like he never truly loved me. How could any man love me if my own father could not? I wanted that love from my father that I never fully received. It is a terrible loss to me. An awful waste.

I hated him. I hated him for so long. I only called him by his first name. Or didn't speak of him at all. I tore him off of a pedestal and threw him to the ground. A displaced god in my personal garden of hell. The more I hated him, the more I loved him without even trying. I tried to justify his actions to myself, I still do sometimes. I tried to place him back on the pedestal the prodigal god returned to his rightful place of honor. Waged a whole war with myself. All for what?

When I woke up I felt raw. Tender to the touch, like a still healing scrape. Even now I feel hurt. As my wedding draws closer all I keep trying to not think about is that moment when the judge (or the pastor or whomever) says "Who gives this woman to be wed?" The moment when it will be only my mother standing there beside me. When my father will not be there to say "Her mother and I." When the music begins playing at the reception and there is no father for me to dance with.

I've never been so sad to wake up.