Daddy's Girl - Life before Religion

I've always been the apple of his eye, to others' dismay. Yes, he shamelessly doted and loved on me. I was his eldest, his crown and glory, his beautiful daughter. All the times, we shared a smile across the room, a hug so tightly I thought he would never let go...All the tears, mine and his, of all the fights we had over who would control me and the things I did; me or him. Oh, yes,  I was a Daddy's girl... All the bicycle trips that we took to different towns, him and I. All the times, he took me to swimming, karate, judo, and soccer...and was so proud of his little girl! You could see it in his eyes... How proud he was...

And then...

Sigh. I don’t know where to begin.  I've been looking for that guy since I was 12 years old ; the last time he was my father and I was his pride and joy. I looked for him in all the men that I dated, or slept with. I looked for him in all the wrong places. I looked for him in alcohol. I looked for him in the religions that I explored. But I couldn’t find him.  Every time I call him, he makes me regret it.  The words he says cut so deep. The withholding of affection, the inability to say I love you, and mean it, hurts me so deep. I can never please him. All I ever wanted was for him to love me, and accept me. I just wanted him to be proud of me like he used to. Before religion made him greater than he is, and me less than I am. Before religion came before unconditional love between a daughter and her first love and hero; her father. But with everything that he says and does, he shows me that he is ashamed of me.  And that’s a tough pill to swallow. 

My story started a long time ago when I was a young girl in Somalia; a motherless girl. That has a lot of connotation in my culture. A motherless girl is less than the other girls. She has no one to keep her ‘shame.’ She has no mother to teach her how to be a woman. And God forbid, if she has a stepmother, woo to her.   I’m kidding myself when I think this is an easy fix. This is so many years of anger, hurt, resentment, bitterness, and injustice.  I feel robbed. I feel robbed of the essentials in life; love and security.  I’m angry, and rightfully so, like anyone who’s ever been robbed, but I can’t get all those years back. I can’t get all that time that I spent crying, and feeling so alone in my father’s home full of people that were my so called “family.”  I can’t get those years back in Kenya living with an aunt who violated my body in the name of her culture. I can’t get back the years of self-destruction. I can’t get all the years back where I was filling the void, feeling so empty, and thirsty for love, but never attaining it.  I can see my whole life flashing before me. The little girl, the rebellious and angry teenager, the young adult, and finally… a mother, too soon, admittingly, because I wasn’t ready to grow up yet.  I was still rebelling, but I admit, he slowed me down. I couldn’t do the things to him that I was doing to myself. I couldn’t do the things to him that was done to me. I thought about giving him up, but  it was as if he was my redemption, and …trust me, I’m not a religious person. I abhor religion with a passion so great, you’d be afraid of it. I don’t know if there’s a god. I’ve been always told that there was one. Who knows? I’d like to ask him where he was all my life when I was alone. But then again, I’ve been  told so much about religion my life that was so unsettling to me that I never accepted it.  I couldn’t accept it. Like I said, I’ve always been a fighter, so I was fighting all these forces trying to tear me down, forcing me to accept this lesser subservient being that I was; supposedly was. But I couldn’t accept it. I think there may be a higher being. Perhaps. Who knows. But religion has no place in my life, and I won’t pass it on to my child either.  Religion has done me no favors. It’s taken so much from me. My worth. It’s giving me the opposite of peace of mind. It’s taken my father’s love and affection.  He feels justified because of my lack of faith to neglect my son and I. So really, when people try to tell me about religion, I ask them, what has religion done for me? Nothing. And its taken everything. So I’m not giving it anymore of me.