I Will Not Let Heartbreak Define Me

Once upon a time there was a little girl (about 6 or 7), she was a wild, brave girl who had a wonderful family of sisters and a mother. Her father was around, but rarely. When he was, he was always watched. The little girl was too young to understand if that was out of the ordinary but she knew, or so she thought she knew, that her father was a saint.

The little girl had a “normal” life filled with lovely neighborhood friends who were always outside playing things from kickball to mud fights. She had a little sister who was her best friend and older sisters who were there when mother was away. She went to a good elementary school where she learned everything she knew.

One day after a festival filled with cotton candy, and running around, the little girl was told to go take a shower. As she was taking a shower, her father (who wasn’t there before she got into the shower) was in the room. As she emerged from the foggy bathroom, her father asked her to come sit on the bed, so she did, he then began kissing her…everywhere, and asking her if she knew he loved her.

Fourteen years later

The little girl is an adult now. Her father has since passed away. She has a fiancé and a little boy. She seems happy on the outside but deep down she is not; she doesn’t know why she has this pain, she doesn’t know why she has no trust, she doesn’t know why she is strangely afraid of men, and why she always dressed in hoodies and sweatpants. Her and her fiancé fight a lot, mostly about why she has no trust for him.

One day, he told her, “I think you need to tell your family about what your father did to you” then it went quiet, her heart started racing, she started crying, and she replied with, “You’re right. Why else would I have this pain inside? Why else would I be scared of people who claim they love me?”

After a few days of preparing her speech for her family, she took them on one by one, starting with one sister a time. They each reacted differently, they each told stories as well, it was a heartbreaking yet relieving conversation each time she brought it up.

She was scared to tell her little sister because she was scared that it had also happened to her. She was also scared to tell her mother because, well, its her mother. After speaking to her little sister she found out that she did not have anything done to her, she was relieved.

After speaking to her mother she felt sadder than she ever had. Seeing the sadness in her mothers eyes, seeing the anger, but hearing “well he’s gone now so theres nothing I can do,” it was all so real, so really true.

She pretended telling them helped her, but in reality she was so used to pushing it out of her head, she believed that’s all she did again, pushed it away, placed it to the back of her head where it sat again, where she felt safe from it. She wanted to believe that she was someone who could say “I looked up to my father,” she wanted to be a daddy’s girl. She did not want to believe that someone could do something so horrible while saying “I love you.”

She wrote something one sleepless night:

You’re there, and then you aren’t
you ask me if I know you love me
I think it’s okay
I don’t stop it
you proceed to tell me you love me
over and over again
you think that will cover up any damage it may cause
I let it
I grew up and still let it
it cost me happiness
it cost me faith and trust
I pushed it aside until one day I broke
I cried for the first time about it
yet I still pretend that it didn’t happen
I still lie to myself that you couldn’t do that
it hurts but I’m good at hiding it
I’ve gained something from it
a thick wall to block my heart
it’s not a good gain but it’s something
I wonder what you were thinking
I wish I spoke up earlier
I wish it didn’t still effect me
I wish I could get past it
I can’t
I want to say “I won’t let it define me”
I’m tired
I’m sad
I’m hurt
but I’m strong
or so i think i am”

The pauses in the story are the deep breaths she took because she was pouring her heart out while she was sobbing.

She recently forgave him.

She kept flowers he gave her for four years. She threw them away because she believed those were a symbol of being held down. Once she released them, a weight was lifted off of her heart.

Her broken heart was able to be fixed.
She was able to love with real trusting love.
She was able to love her father with a forgiving heart.

Once upon a time there was a little girl.