Rotten Teenager!!
I was a rotten teenager. Not your average spoiled, know-it-all, not going to clean my room, getting a attitude because I am 13 teenager. No I was a manipulative acid-tongued monster, who realized early on that I could make things go my own way with just a few minor adjustments. The writers of today’s Soap Opera’s could have not created a worse “villainess.” A few nasty comments, here a lie or two there, maybe a evil glare for a finishing touch, and things would be grand. Or so I thought.
For the most part, and on the outside I was a good kid. A giggly, pug-nosed tomboy who liked sports and thrived on competition (a nice way of saying some what pushy and demanding). Which is probably why most people allowed me to squeak by using what I now call “Bulldozer tactics” with no regards for anyone I felt to be of value. For a while, anyway.
Since I was perceptive enough to get some people to bend my way, it amazes me how long it took to realize how I was hurting so many others. Not only did I succeed in pushing away many of my closest friends by trying to control them; I also managed to sabotage, time and time again the most precious relationship in my life: MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY DAD.
Even today my former behavior astonishes me each time I reach into my memories. Hurtful comments, that cut and stung the people I cared the most about. Acts of confusion and anger that seemed to rule my every move- all to make sure that things went my way.
My dad would cry to me “please don’t push me away. I want to help you!”
I would reply with my best face of stone “ I didn’t ask for you! I never wanted you to care about me! Leave me alone and forget I ever lived!”
My dad began to believe I really meant it. My actions proved nothing less.
I was mean and manipulative, trying to get my way at any cost. Like many young girls in school, the boys whom I knew where off limits were always the first ones I had to date. Sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night just to prove I could do it. Finding anyway to draw attention to myself while simultaneously trying to be invisible.
Ironically, I wish I could say I had been heavy into drugs during that period of my life, swallowing mind altering pills and smoking things that changed my personality, thus accounting for the terrible, razor-sharp words that came flying out my mouth. However, that was not the case. That came much later. My only addiction at that time was hatred; my only high was inflicting pain.
But then I asked myself why. Why the need to hurt? And why the people I cared about the most? Why the need for all the lies? Why the attacks on my dad? I would drive my self mad with all the why’s until one day it all exploded in a uncontrolled rage.
Lying awake in the “resort” (my pet name for the psychiatric hospital) I knew I could not go on this way. And I did not want to inflict anymore pain on people to cover up what I was truly trying to hid myself; self-hatred. Self-hatred unleashed on everyone else.
I saw my dad pained face for the first time in years- warm tired blue eyes filled with nothing but love. My first encounter with unconditional love. What a powerful feeling.
Despite all the lies I had told him, all the hurt I caused him, he still loved me. I cried on his arms for hours one afternoon, and asked him why he still loved me after all the horrible things I said and did to him. He brushed my hair out of my tear-filled eyes and said frankly “ that’s what dad’s are for.”
A kind smile penetrated his tears, as the lines in his tested face told me all I needed to know. I was his daughter but more important he was my dad. Not every rotten child is so lucky. Not every dad can be pushed to the limits I explored time and time again, and venture back with feelings of love.
Unconditional love is the most precious gift we can give. Being forgiven for the past is the most precious gift we can receive.
This was wrote for the greatest man to ever come in my life. A man that didn’t have to but did. My step dad Richard Lee Adkins 7/28/41-12/13/04. I LOVE YOU DAD
