A.K.

Valentines Day doesn’t mean the same thing to you and I. Quite honestly, I don’t know what love is and why candy boxes and a bouquet of roses represents it. I moved to California at the age of 6 on Valentines Day of 2007. To me, February 14th is my Californiaversary. A representation of a new beginning and a new story. I was a mistake, well my mother would never say it but she was only 17 when she had me. She often reminds me that I, in fact, wasn’t planned but I saved her life. I grew up with a part-time dad and a full time mom working as a full time waitress to provide everything for me. However, I always felt I spent more time with my father. I was daddy’s little girl. We would go to the park and he would push me on the swings. He would walk me to school and walk me home after. I looked up to him as my knight in shining armour. He was my super hero… until he started to break my heart. I watched him show his love for my mother, believing every second of it but that was not love. It was hospital visits, police breaking down our door, it was moving away from everything we knew. Looking back, he didn’t know how to love anyone, including himself. I never lost my love for my dad but it felt like he lost his love for me. 

I am a proud older sister to 7 other boys and girls. But it wasn’t always like this. I found out about my siblings from my mom, while I was still a child who thought my dad didn’t care about me. It was nearly 7 years since I talked to my father but piece by piece he was still breaking my heart. Every time my mom said “Ace.. I need to talk to you” I knew it was going to be one of those nights. One of the nights I hated my life. One of the nights I felt worthless. Ever since I was young, I felt like it was my fault. I must’ve done something to make him mad at me. I didn’t love him enough. I hated my life. I hated myself. It was my fault he left me. I was angry but I didn’t know what to do about it. I was incredibly jealous of my siblings because I thought he wanted them and not me. I wasn’t good enough. I was never good enough.

I have learned the hard way that you may never feel good enough after being abandoned and mistreated by your own father. In high school, I surrounded myself with guys. I was that girl with “only” guy friends. But I was trying to figure out what being a man even meant. I was so invested in keeping my guy friends my guy friends because I wanted to know what this type of relationship was like, between a man and a woman. I didn’t have a father figure in my life that was constant and showed me what it meant to be genuinely cared about. I had to figure it out on my own. I made mistakes. At times, I just wanted to feel something from someone who I thought cared. I hate when people say a girl has “daddy issues”. It has such a negative connotation but it is such a real thing. It is a feeling of never being good enough to be loved.

I realized I had daddy issues when I was a sophomore in college and the relationship I thought was a picturesque example of love stemming from a strong friendship, destroyed my life. I was a senior in high school and a friendship turned into something more so quick and with so much power. This love was strong and this love was real. We spent every moment together, countless late nights, endless conversations about the future and what we meant to each other. When we ended up at different colleges, things started to fade and they dynamics of not only our relationship but our friendship changed forever. Nothing was the same. We didn’t talk. It was like a switch went off and was unable to be turned back on. He was the first person I told everything too. He knew my soul. I lost a relationship but I also lost hope. As my school year continued, I realized I was so invested in this relationship, I was failing in all other aspects of my life. Academically, sophomore year of college was the worst one. Socially, I thought I was on top of the world; going out frequently with the motto “drinko bout it” analogous to “forget about it”. I was not doing well.

I don’t talk about my past. I get uncomfortable talking about the idea that my own blood didn’t love me. I had to start dealing with the missing pieces in my heart by learning how to love myself; being proud of who I’ve become. Seems like an effortless solution to such a hard problem in my life but it was not effortless nor was it easy. I struggle with figuring out how to love myself everyday. Pieces are still missing, taken away and they might never come back, but they’re not all gone. I’ve made strides by finding new pieces to help mend my broken heart. I do this everyday by allowing myself to get uncomfortable, sharing intimate stories with my friends including my best friend, my mom, talking about my past. I’m learning how to love myself by sharing my story with you. 

Social media is a platform used to express yourself. It is a highlight reel of life’s best moments. Captions are used as an opportunity to make someone laugh and to gain a like. Pictures are posted to show our best features and how fun our lives can be! Never once did it occur to me to be vulnerable when I was low. If anything, I would just disappear for weeks or months at a time because my life wasn’t fun so there was nothing to post about. I didn’t want to be vulnerable over a digital platform because I could never know how it would be received. The idea of sharing personal struggles on social media is scary because a lot is unknown about what other people are going to do with it. This fear is real but it can be empowering. 

In recent years, I’ve shared posts about my siblings revealing to some of my closer friends I even had siblings. However, I was so wrapped up in the idea of what others would think. If I were to share my whole complete story now, it would be a complicated portrait with hundreds of journals and therapy receipts documenting the trials and tribulations of what I’ve been through. A caption would indicate the struggles I’ve had and how I’m learning to love and to not care how others might respond. The post would be for me, another step in mending my heart.

I’ve always believed that you can’t compare your struggles to another’s. Your pain is real. Your feelings about your struggles are real. The first step in learning how to love is being able to be honest with yourself. Do you know who you are? Do you like who you have become? Are you living the life you want too?