I miss my daughter. Not as much as before though. I’ve gotten used to the fact that she keeps a distance, both emotionally and geographically. She lives in Berlin, Germany. Occasionally, I receive some news about her from my son, her brother. Apparently, she keeps a distance towards all of us. To some extent, she is mirroring my own behaviour.
In 2008, my daughter opened my eyes after yet another fight between her mother and me. She angrily said to me: “Why don’t you get a divorce??” Until that moment, I had never realised how transparent our bad marital situation had become for our children. I thought, felt and believed that we had been hiding it from them.
I received the blame for the 2010 divorce. That’s fine with me because I don’t feel any guilt or shame. Actually, my divorce is one of the best decisions in my life. It allowed me to grow and become a better man. My former wife would have made me a wreck. I’m still reluctant to tell my side of the story though. I prefer keeping our dirty laundry inside.
I had always assumed that my daughter looked like me, both inside and outside. I was wrong. Realising my error in judgement has allowed me to accept our current situation. Without acceptance, I might still be in stage 4 of DABDA: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
I’m worried that our increasingly dysfunctional family life has left scars on my daughter’s future. Some of my blogs reveal my attempts at reaching out to her, albeit from a distance. Fortunately, my son never took sides and he seems to have escaped my worries.
I have no idea when my daughter will realise that every story has two sides. She only knows one, which is a distorted view following deep denial, reverse psychology and psychological projection. I just hope that our divorce trauma has not resulted in similar behaviour.
I’m hopeful as my daughter is intelligent, just like her younger brother. I’m lucky in that respect. Intelligence is, however, not only about knowledge. It’s also about knowing how much you do not know. More dangerous are the unknown unknowns (my 2016 blog): we do not know, what we do not know. Our dirty laundry may fit latter category.
As stated before, a reconciliation between my daughter and me is on my bucket list. Perhaps, there are some more items on that list but I wouldn’t be able to recall them right now. In life, everything is about priorities and choices.
The Blower’s Daughter (2001) by Damien Rice
artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her skies
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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