Dear Dad,
You remember TJ, my first boyfriend. I don’t think you were ever a fan of his, and rightly so, but you supported me and my choice in a boyfriend. Well, until the night you saw him break my heart for the final time.
The thing about the first relationship is that the heart and mind believe it will last forever. Rarely does it.
I really lost myself in that one. I loved so deeply and with complete abandon. I didn’t see myself slipping away until I saw the look in your eyes as I sobbed. I saw your helplessness and I saw your anger at him. I recalled this look every single time I missed him and it always kept me from going back.
The thing about this boyfriend is that he had a deep commitment to himself and to infidelity. He also centered himself around making me feel small and irrelevant.
He had this really fabulous time of telling me he loved me and then ghosting me while I questioned what I had done wrong. He played into the insecurity of a teenage girl by judging my body, making me feel inadequate, and openly comparing me to the girls he cheated on me with, but you didn’t know this. In fact, I don’t think I ever told you about how abusive that relationship was: emotional, mental, and physical.
I was a lost soul for many of these years, but because you helped to raise me to be a strong person, I could always find my north.
I lost a lot of weight during this time. I think I was a little less than 90 lbs at one point. I don’t know if you noticed or, if you did, that you knew what to say.
In any event, I was struggling. I didn’t pull away from you, I think I started to cling to you even more.
On the fateful day of which I titled this letter to you, TJ had ignored me for a week. I wasn’t sure why and I was for sure spiraling as only a young woman in love for the first time can.
As I was driving up to your house, I saw TJ driving in his truck. I called him immediately, but he did not answer. Shocking.
I was already upset when I got to your door and went into my bedroom. I remember calling TJ again, and this time he did answer. I wish he had not.
In that very short conversation, the ugliest words were thrown at me, my already waning self-esteem obliterated. I was shattered.
For the first time, I let myself really feel the pain of the relationship. That I had let myself down in being in it and that I felt as though I had also let you down.
I felt like you taught me to be more, but I had allowed myself to be less.
JoAnn held as me I sobbed with my entire body and soul on the floor of my bedroom. I recall letting out some horrific noise that sent you immediately in my direction.
But, I couldn’t face you, I couldn’t repeat the ugly things that had been said to me. I think JoAnn told you. I don’t recall. I just remember the look on your face: helpless and angry. You stood silently in the hallway as I cried.
I cried that whole night, I’m sure you heard. And when I woke the next day, a shell of the shell of myself, I wasn’t sure how you would receive me.
You didn’t waver. We picked up just as we had been before the big cry. I remember you telling me that no boy could determine my worth or devalue me.
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, you helped me put myself back together by calling to check on me, taking me to lunch each day, and making sure I knew you saw me for all that I was and loved me for every cell that made up my body.
Thank you for being the dad who built me up and instilled in me a quiet and often loud confidence that all my other boy loves have had to contend with.
Love, Jenny
Love, Jenny 