Dear Seaturtle:

“I think I can give myself grace as to those thoughts still surfacing. I will do my best to keep mindful of these thoughts and not partake and know it will slowly vanish“- Grace, Mindfulness and Patience, the right attitude and practice combo!

“Did you ever fall into a relationship with a person who showed you the same contempt as your mother?“- no. Of all the people who were physically present in my life and with whom I interacted (unlike let’s say a historical/ political figure that caused destruction in millions of lives, including mine, but I was never in that person’s physical presence), no one bothered to put in the time and effort that my mother bothered to put into making me feel bad.

“Dear Retroactive awareness, I am excited for you to become ‘active‘”- (a face that thinks-it’s-funny emoji)

“I feel my dad will support someone I choose, proof of that is actually a relationship I had at 18…  my dad agreed to spend time with him alone when he wanted to get to know my dad“- because it flattered him that a much younger guy wanted to get to know him, to learn from him perhaps, as an admiring mentee?

“Once I turned 18, my dad’s restrictions suddenly stopped. He suddenly no longer cared where I was or how long I was gone“-it could be that he was following a rigid rule, that he was responsible to keep you away from guys only until the age of 18.

Or, it could be that when you were a teenager living with him, while and he was divorced from your mother, there was an emotionally- incestuous element to his demands that you will be available to him (ex., that you will taken a shower before he gets back home, if I remember correctly, so that you are there for him the moment he’s back home), and to his persistent insistence that you will not wear tight jeans etc., so not to attract boys. But by the time you turned 18, he was in a new romantic relationship (with his current girlfriend..?), and that’s when he stopped being.. inappropriately possessive of you.

“If I spent too long at my mom’s he said he felt like he was just a bank to me… and there is a similarity here with N too“- I don’t know what F wanted from you.. an ever-lasting admiration, a.. kind of love that’s not appropriate for a father to demand from his daughter..?

“I notice sometimes when I’m having a good time I worry the good time will end or that I will make it awkward and ruin it. D.. last night I met some new people..  we ended up just dancing all night with, and it was so much fun to dance like that. I do love to dance… There were moments I was dancing just carefree, then suddenly I’d have thoughts of wondering what I looked like and not wanting to ruin the moment by losing my ability to dance… I wonder what this is all about, where those thoughts are coming from. A thorn perhaps?“- this could be about F’s inappropriate possessiveness of you pre-18, his attention to your clothes being too revealing= his attention to your revealed feminine body, and how awkward and self-conscious it made you feel at the time.

“Do you remember when I commented about N’s lack of humor, and it still sounds superficial that I say it“- yes, I remember, and it no longer sounds superficial to me, not when I think of N being chronically numb as the reason behind him not being able to laugh (or compliment you, or elaborate about his feelings.. or freely dance..?)

“But to put it into perspective, last night I laughed more with M and the friends I met than I can ever remember laughing with N. I would love for my partner to be someone I can dance and laugh with, but I also want to be careful to not have too many standards/expectations“- sometime, you can journal about realistic expectations from a partner vs unrealistic expectations from a partner…

anita