What My Father Didn't Teach Me

is haunting me....
tormenting me...
teasing me...
frustrating me...

My father never thought me how a man is supposed to love a woman and how a woman is supposed to love a man. As a matter of fact, he didn't teach me much, and the things he did teach me, he did so inadvertently. When I look back over my life, I don't have many memories that include my father, good or bad.

I remember a time or two when he let me dance on his shoe...but it was only after my uncle had let me dance on his. I don't remember him ever hugging me or telling me he loved me or that he cared...probably because he didn't. I think he became too consumed with trying to be a provider to remember that he was also supposed to be a protector and teacher.

I learned a lot of things from watching him. I learned that drowning your sorrows in liquor wasn't a good look. I learned that if you made your bed hard you would have to eventually lie in it. I learned that people are cruel and evil for no reason at all. I learned how I did not want to be treated and what I would not tolerate from not just a man but from anyone....

I learned that I must be unlovable if my own father did not love me.


I remember when my uncle died...I remember thinking, 'who will love me now.' My uncle wasn't a great man...nothing extraordinary about him, but he loved me and I loved him. He told me he loved me all the time. He would hug and kiss me and shower me with affection. He protected me, even from my father. He gave me money. It was like I was the moon and the stars to him. He left me when I needed him the most. I had to go through my preteen and teenage years without anyone reaffirming my beauty and my worth. It was as if Cinderella had lost both glass slippers and her fairy godmother.

I remember the first time a guy showed me attention. I was so scared I beat him up. That was 5th grade. In 9th grade, I hid under a car...10th, behind a trash dumpster. Adulthood, I just hide behind whatever mask I have up at the moment and for the most part, I am emotionally unavailable.

But, I want to change that...the more I love me, the more I want someone else to love me. To hold me...To kiss me...To cover me with warm embraces and shower me with tender affection.

I just don't know how...or where to began...I get so scared when someone is in my space for too long...makes me uneasy...got me giving them the side-eye... in my head I be like 'take whatever it is you gonna take from me and be gone.'

But that's the old me...and last time I looked, that me didn't have a man.


I am ready y'all. I am willing and I am able...now I just have to learn the lesson.

"Sometimes we have to go back to the beginning in order for us to reach our end."

~Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do (smooches)