When is it okay to allow your daughters heart to break? I thought it would be a young man, natures adolescent crash course in crushes to cast the first blow but never her own daddy. When is it okay for me to lie and tell her things are not as they seem when we both know that they are exactly as she sees them and knows in her heart. I have braved on through my own divorce despair, wearing it like an old tattered dress I used to adore, until finally throwing it aside only to discover my daughter is wearing it now. This hideous dress is too big on her tiny frame and she is center stage holding up an indifferent mask that says, I don’t even care, or It doesn’t matter but I see underneath. The spotlight is glaring on her. I want to pull her off stage like an old vaudeville act where I snag her with the curl of my cane and we tap dance off waving and mugging.
When is it okay to let your daughter think that she is disposable? To stop talking to her for weeks (the ultimate emotional abuse) or refuse to buy her a dress (something so simple to help her see how beautiful she is?) Its like slowly unplugging the red, yellow and green pegs of the Light Bright til all that is left are a million little holes. The picture is gone even if her light shines bright. She is the patient in Parker Brothers Operation. Her pieces are being carelessly pulled out, haphazardly hitting the sides and buzzing like a creepy clown with a chainsaw in a nightmare, but in this game, the player doesn’t follow any rules. He never has to pay up. He never has his turn skipped and he seems to roll double sixes over and over. It isnt enough to say someday it will be my turn. Someday he will land on my Boardwalk and Park Place with two hotels. Someday Ill sink his final Battleship. It does no good to strategize victory over someone who resides in your childs heart. Its like bombing the enemy but also hitting a playground. Nobody can ever win here.
The emotion contained in this tangled knot is tight and complicated like a ball of twinkling Christmas tree lights. I cant find the end and Im not sure if its one solitary bad bulb or is it dramatically damaged. Is it irreparably broken? The counselor told me this is not mine to repair. Its her fathers job to repair it but it requires a bridge of trust teetering over a perilous precipice, her heart. The emotion is tight like a chilly morning cough when youre congested and groggy. How do you begin to loosen this? Can I start by insisting he hasn’t chosen another woman over her? Can I repair the kink in the wire if I tell her to overlook his choices, pass over it like a fighter jet leaving an evaporating trail of smoke. My daughter is stuck in the pitch black of adult affairs when she is still in the midday sunrise of her childhood. My daughter is the bullseye. The rings surrounding her center say Deflecting the truth, Blaming the Innocent, Ravenous Jealousy and Cowardice and the target is most definitely her. She cried because she thinks he is hurting. Somehow she is the caretaker of broken Dads.
God choses each path carefully and I cant begin to understand why this is her path but I accept it like I accept my own path. Ill take a machete and chop the hell out of the weeds and brambles in her way (that’s the Puerto Rican upbringing in me). Sometimes its harder when your children are this strong. You don’t know what to do if they don’t need you to kiss it and make it better and its not that kind of wound anyhow. You cant put a band aid on a tear in the heart. All I can say is sign me up to spend MORE time with her because she isnt going to his house. She needs a Homecoming dress? My hand shoots up like Donkey in Shrek. OOOOH OOOOH pick me! Ill buy it! Ask me to chose between her and a lover? I choose her first and possesively like the first round pick of the jock in a dodgeball team lineup. It is my greatest honor to be in her delightful presence and hear about her day, her hair, her friends, her Instagram, her lunch table, her giggle, her pottery project, her cheerleading, her shopping, her coffee drink, her dreams. her plans, her jokes, her youtube, her chocolate craving, and her heartbreak over the loss of her dad. She is as breathtaking to me today as the first day I laid eyes on her in the delivery room. Its never okay to break your daughters heart because to do so would be to eclipse that very precious fleeting moment when we get to orbit the brilliance of our childrens glowing sun. I love you, daughter. Shine bright and know that no one can stay too far away from you for long especially the two humans who love you the most. Dont lose faith. You are infinitely lovable.
