Being

"It's been a long, hard road without you by my side
Why weren't you there all the nights that we cried
You broke my mother's heart
You broke your children for life
It's not okay, but we're all right"
-- Good Charlotte, "Emotionless"

Sitting at a picnic table in front of the baseball field, my father slid two cards across the splintered wood towards me. "Happy birthday, honey bun," he said.

I smiled and picked up the blue envelope. Then I grabbed the yellow envelope and laughed when Lassie began to bark as I flipped the card open. "I have no idea what Lassie is trying to say, but Happy Birthday!" it read. The card was signed by my father.

Confused, I picked up the other card and read it again, not remembering who it was from. I assumed a sibling tossed it in the pile when my father and step-mother came to meet me. But the first card was signed by my step-mother and she signed for my father too—the way it's always been.

That meant my father picked out the Lassie card for me.

My father has never given me a card before.

Christmas, my father disappeared into his room and returned with a small wrapped package. "This is from me," he said. "Your step-mom thought it was stupid but I thought of you when I saw it." The contents was a Pimp My Cubicle kit including a disco ball and animal-print paper.

My father had never picked out a gift for me before.

At 26, I'm experiencing these things for the very first time, and honestly, it's confusing. It's difficult to let go of the anger I've held on to for so long. I became comfortable with the anger I've harbored towards my father. He went and got himself a new family and I tried hard to fit in: I gave up my horseback riding lessons—something I loved—to join the softball team because his new children played sports. I took an interest in acting because of the night he introduced me to them. But it was apparent where his loyalties lied, and it wasn't with me.

I could trust the anger.

To harbor resentment without knowing how, or why, or when it started... after a while it just becomes something that you do, becomes ingrained into the very fiber of your being. My name is Sarah, I love dogs, I write for a living, and I'm angry at my father for leaving me. It's a part of my identity.

And now the anger is dissipating and I'm uncertain with what to do. I should trust my father. But it's frightening: letting go. I don't think my relationship with him will backtrack, but I feel that I'm losing a part of my identity by just not being angry anymore. I feel like I'm walking on a broken foundation and I wonder what else about me will stop being.

Lately late at night I'll walk into the kitchen where my birthday cards are displayed adjacent to a vase of decaying sunflowers and I'll pick up the Lassie card and open it to hear the dog barking. I feel silly standing there barefoot in the dark clutching a $2.99 card, but it's the closest proof of love I have.

And it's terrifying realizing how much I wanted it.