People love to get into other people's business. I think it is just a part of human nature. Otherwise, I don't know how to explain why there are so many nosy people in the world.
As you get to know new people, one of the questions that usually comes up is about your parents. Where do they live? What do they do?
When I tell people that I don't really talk to my dad, I get a few standard responses. "Oh, that's a shame," "You really should," and "You should really try to bury whatever it is between you, you never know when it's all going to be over," (which is super morbid) are some of the usual opinions I didn't ask for in the first place.
Usually, I will just shrug and answer "it is what it is." What I don't tell people is how long it took for me to get to a place where not talking to my father was something I could accept.
What I don't tell them is how many nights he would talk circles around me and make me doubt my own sanity. What I don't tell them is when he would berate me over getting a "C" in a class while I was in and out of the hospital my freshman year of high school.
They don't know the absolute emotional turmoil it takes for a 14-year-old girl to decide that she can't have her dad in her life anymore. Let me tell you firsthand, seeing the millions of "a dad is a girl's first love" and "Daddy's girl" things all over social media every day used to hurt a lot.
So before you go telling someone else who they should and should not have in their life, especially someone you've just met, maybe you should take a minute to walk in their shoes.
Here's a clue.
If you don't know them well enough to know if you could fit in their shoes, then you definitely shouldn't tell them what to do with the people in their life.
For me, it's healthier for me to not have my father in my life. It's healthier mentally and emotionally.
It took a long time for me to come to that conclusion and it took me even longer to actually put it into action in my life. Given all of that difficulty, I would appreciate a little consideration when people tell me what to do with my life in that regard.
Flash forward to today, and I'm doing better without him in my life than I ever could have imagined. Thanks to my father, I am a stronger person. One who isn't afraid to cut people out of my life if they are holding me back in some way.
Some girls dads make them stronger by sticking by them, mine made me stronger by making me cut him out. Tell me again why that's a bad thing?
