Are you aware of someone’s legacy you might be carrying?
Are there unresolved patterns you continue to recapitulate?
We grow up with fantasy, illusions and fairy tales that affect our ‘reality buttons.’ I guess I brought this fairy tale world to my own personal story as if it would give me a reason to believe.
I am sharing this very intimate revelation because it’s important to voice it.
My biological father died when I was 3 years old. At 58 I recognize fully how the yearning I carried for my deceased father has shaped my life. I’m also quite aware how residual fragments from this yearning born so long ago continue to show up in the men I encounter today.
My family never understood my longing for him as I continued to hold on tightly to his legacy. It was my way of keeping him alive and present in my life. I never question his character or what kind of man he was. Whether he was rich or poor, good or bad, heartbreaker or prince charming, the only thing that mattered was he was my biological father and he left me.
Because I held no judgment, I wouldn’t listen to anyone else judge him either. I had to believe, for my own well being, that he would have loved me if he were alive. So I gave him my heart.
I’ve said goodbye many times. Years ago I sat at his grave site and expressed the pain of his abandonment and my heartfelt yearning for him. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw him. Upon his grave I cried my eyes out letting him know that since he couldn’t hold me as a child I would sit on his lap now. I cried for all the losses, fantasies, and illusions my mind had conjured up.
Is that unconditional love or foolish illusion? I guess there’s a fine line between illusion and unconditional love. Alas, I am learning what that is.
In retrospect, I realize how easy it was to love him unconditionally. It was indeed a one-way street I made him bigger than life! The problem is that I brought that same sentiment to other men. This, of course, doesn’t work so well ‘in real life.’ Yes, It’s much more complicated to feed an illusion when the person is sitting right in front of you. But many of us try!
Every man I have known was subjected to my father’s legacy, including my son. I recognize the enormity of this acknowledgment. Up until now, most of the men in my life were unavailable in their own unique way, just as my father was. Yet, I stayed, and prayed, that someday they would show up and love me the way I required love.
Because I made my father so available in my mind I transferred the same pattern to the other men in my life. I convinced myself that they were available in reality when in fact what they said and who they were where not one and the same. Just more illusions! I have learned to let go and walk away. If what I desire is not what is standing in front of me I no longer hold on. No judgment, just knowing.
I’ll never know the truth of who my father was. I will never be able to look my father in the eye and know who he was in body, only in spirit. In the past, I would of given anything to look into his eyes to understand the pain, hold him gently and compassionately with love. It would of set both of us free.
I decided it was time to put his legacy to rest. When I drive to California in June I will visit Reno. My father was diagnosed at age 20 with cancer after serving in the US Air Force in the nuclear testing site in Nevada in the early 1950’s. It is there I will say good-bye. It is in that place I need to grieve, not at his grave, but the place that took his life away. It is there that I will thank him for this incredible learning that took place.
In the first chapter of my book I wrote, “I wanted to find the truth even if it killed me—and it almost did.”
The truth is not always what it appears to be. People are not always what they appear to be. It is our choice to hold onto illusions or see what really is! I’m grateful for this immense learning.
I am blessed to finally see the whole picture and dispel the illusion. Not only does it free me up, it frees my son and the partners I have known. Now I am ready to see everyone for who they really are! That’s huge!
That’s what dispelling illusions are all about.
Are you ready to dispel the illusions you hold onto to so you may move forward in awareness?
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