DO YOU SING THE ‘ROLLING STONE’ PAPA BLUES?
She sat across the table from me and said “I told my father not to treat me like one of his girlfriends.” The sentence hit me like a slap in the face. I was singing from the same songbook and for the purpose of this blog I’m going to call it the ‘rolling stone papa blues’ song. I don’t know what the melody would sound like so don’t ask but the emotion it evoked was exactly the same. Rejection. There are so many women I know that had non-committal fathers, but who needs a dad right? The mothers will still be there and I’m sure will do an excellent job by themselves. That’s until their beautiful daughters grow up and ask themselves “what did I do wrong?” Of course, I didn’t ask myself that question but I did wonder why dad wasn’t completely ‘present’ in more than one sense of the word.
Building A Wall Called Independence
Im writing this blog because I know that there are so many women that do this. “I don’t need a man.” ‘I can do it all by myself.” “I’m an independent woman.” Great, there is nothing wrong with any of those things but wouldn’t it be nice to have comfort and support? What pain are you basing your independent woman status around? Does it come from a place of feeling rejected? We miss out on so much when we mask pain and operate from a spiritually broken and paralysed place.
I was once told that because I came from a broken home that I was more likely to enter into a broken marriage. In fact, Iyanla Vanzant has been known to say that a woman is most likely to marry someone with the type of characteristics as her father. She said that we inherit and create the same patterns. Whether this is true or not I am not in the place to say. I will say this though, I’m a woman who is fully aware of the affects of having a ‘rolling stone papa’. I am not willing to operate my life from a place of fear. However, I believe that my saving grace is operating from a place of awareness and spiritual cleansing. A rolling stone Papa may always roll and I will not have any control over that. That may be all that Papa knows how to do but what I do have control over is me. My pain, my bitterness, my freedom and my truth.
If you can relate and you’re asking “what do I do about this situation?” Then here’s my humble advice. See the world through Papa’s eyes because chances are that he loves you but is just not capable of expressing it. From there draw a line in the sand so that the past cannot affect your future or blindsight you into going into abusive relationships. Make peace with your past, the pain and the memories by working it out of your system. How do you do this? Well my favourite advice is counselling and prayer. Having reflection, writing in a diary, praying and talking to someone really gets the toxic stuff out and away. I’m not saying confront the the person because sometimes that just makes things even worse, especially if the person is not willing to change. If you do find compromise and change then you are a truly blessed individual. However, I have found diarising, praying and I truly believe that counselling really helps.
Let me close this blog with this, my papa was loving and whatever differences we have had over the course of my life will never change how I feel about him. I am not writing this to bash him, I am writing it to encourage you, the reader. I have closure on all the shortcomings as a father that I felt he might have had. My reward has been the man that stands by my side, who has shown me all the benefits of what can happen when you forgive, evolve and heal. May you too reap all benefits of releasing yourself from the pain of ‘rolling stone Papa’ when you allow yourself to be free.
Yours Sincerely
Sal
