I never figured I would ever have the ‘need’ to write you. When I was angry, I knew you wouldn’t listen to me, knew you wouldn’t own up to everything you’ve done and continue to do. What I wanted most was for you to stop making excuses and face your life and, more importantly, face what you had done to me and my brother. When I finally let go of my anger, the only way I could function was to ignore you. Demote you. You weren’t Dad, you were Phil, and that distance felt safe.

Now, I’m in a different place really. The only place I could be as a result of the journey you started me on. Frankly, I have no expectations, nor do I care whether you agree with what I think. You are a very smart man (as if anything else is possible in this family) and you can either wield your logic like a weapon to warp the truth to your liking or you can let it serve you.

I think the mistake you’ve made is in thinking that if I would only understand you, buy-in to your story, that I would validate your actions and decisions. What you’ve never really gotten is that I do in fact ‘get’ you and understand why you’ve done what you’ve done, and how you’ve come to the place you in. And I called “bullshit” on your excuses, which you didn’t like.

I felt that “I’m doing the best I can” wasn’t a free pass for some of the heinous things you did. “I’m sorry” ceased to have any meaning.

It isn’t through understanding you that I’ve forgiven you. It is through understanding my ’self’, my divine and beautiful being that I have come to forgive.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean ‘forgive’ in the let’s-kiss-and-makeup-and-move-on-like-nothing-happened version of it. I mean in it the sense that I have let go of my rage towards you, my anger. I mean it in the sense that I have released you (and me) from all expectations of our relationship; how it should have been, how it could have been, how it should be.

So much of my pain came from the expectation that you should do this or that; you should do the right thing, be a good parent, and fulfill xy and z of my needs. As you are well aware, I have a very strong sense of right and wrong.

But I’m really not writing to castigate you.

I feel you’re in pain; I see you are punishing yourself and have been punishing yourself for a long time; and I sense you are lost.

If you had been some man on the street, some guy I met in a coffee shop, I never would have been so vehemently unmoved in my anger. It wouldn’t have been personal.

And it was…personal.

You hurt me and the people I cared about. You caused pain in my life and my brother’s life. How could you do this to me? You were my parent, my guardian, my protector and and you failed me.

It really is a tough realization that all of your anger and pain is self-centered.

The older I get, the more I experience the truth and absoluteness of divine order.  You were exactly the parent I needed, my divine self needed.

On a superficial level, you matched my need and love of music, reading, dancing, and writing.

On a deeper level you matched my need for a righteous fight, to protect others who couldn’t stand up for themselves, and the need for defining experiences of right and wrong.  On this level, our relationship revealed my passion and gift for advocacy.

On the deepest levels, our souls needed each other.  I have been blessed with the realization that I am not special, that my purpose is not to be famous or a billionaire.  My purpose, the purpose of my soul - my existence, is to fully experience my life and the truth of our experience.  Whatever it is.

With you as my parent, I fully experienced, rage, fear, anger, joy, love, righteousness, and spirituality.  I fully experienced the beauty of Jimi Hendrix, Anne McCaffrey, and - above all - dancing.

You were the absolute right and perfect foil for my spiritual awakening.  With one hand you brought me to the seat of learning and with the other hand you would viscerally test me.  I loved Gandhi and MLK, yet when the transgression was personal, I was deeply angry, idolized values forgotten.

I had been running away from ‘me’, my authentic self.  I yearned to be richer, thinner, and special.  So much pain came from not being ok with who I was and where I was.  And who I was, was ok.  And where I was, was ok.

By sheer dint of existing as I was in the place I was, it was ok.  Because if it weren’t, I couldn’t exist there.

The core of me, the eternal self of me, doesn’t actually care.  It has no wants or desires, makes no value judgments.  It’s only purpose is to fully experience, to be ‘in tune’ with the universe.

Have you ever hit a certain note and felt it reverberate from the top of your head, curling your toes, and filling your body?  I’ve had that sensation sometimes when singing a high note, and it feels like your whole body is gathered up in that one note.  It’s a timeless place, existing for an instant.

Well, being in tune with the universe, for me, feels like I am a bell which has been struck.  It vibrates through the core of my being.

By no means do I walk around feeling like a permanent gong, but there are certain instances where I touch that timelessness - dancing, the love I feel for my husband, and - oddly enough - argument and confrontation.

The me that I am doesn’t care if I live in a mansion or a shack.  It doesn’t place any negative value on being raped or beaten.  It’s purpose, simply, is to have a full and direct experience of everything, on all spectrums.

“Oh, anguish?  Let’s experience that.”

(Oddly enough, the more in touch I am with that place, the less I experience those types of emotions - anguish, pain, anger, and even love lacks a certain emotionality.)

I can’t extrapolate what that means for you, or what it all means.  What I do know is that if you want to experience pain or victimization or neediness or intellectual disdain for others or anger or justification or self-sabotage or failure or depression or longing or whatever, that it is your prerogative - your right - to do so.  If that is your choice, I hope you fully and directly experience all of these.

I’m not so awakened that I can hang out with you while you do so, but I can stop holding it against you.

I don’t know if we’ll ever have a normal father/daughter relationship.  Even as a kid I knew I didn’t ‘belong’ to you anyway.  (”Your children are not your children, they are life’s longing for itself.”)  I think you knew it too.

You asked me if there was anything you could do to help.  Well there is, but I’m not personally invested in you doing so.  It’s just a suggestion, to do or ignore as you please.

I’d like you to stop mistreating your body, castigating your ’self’, and flaying your soul.

I’d like you to realize that, no, you are not important.  And be ok with that.

I’d like you to realize that you and I are one.  We really are, and that there is no separation except what we create.  THAT is the illusion of our souls.  I can’t be any more separate from you than I am from my arm.

I’d like you to know that you don’t know everything.  You have learned a bunch of stuff intellectually, but you haven’t directly experienced the truth of it.

I’d like you to stop living in the past, or living in the future.  Go back to the early days of AA.  Take your life a moment, an hour, a day at a time.

Cherish your body, as it is, your mind and emotions as they are.  Don’t wish them to be anything other than they are.  If you feel pain, try and experience the one that is in pain.

I’d like you to acknowledge reality - exactly as it is - without desire to change it or wish it was different.

Above all, I want you to fully open your being to the splendor of the universe.  That splendor is YOU and you should open your being-ness to all of your existence.

Like I said, these are suggestions and you can take them or leave them.  But the truth of the matter is, you are facing death.  And you’ve been trying to strangle your soul like you’ve been strangling your body.

You shouldn’t die in fear or in disconnectedness.  Relax, let go, and surrender to your life.  Stop fighting your very existence.  You’ve been ‘in control’ for a long time with terrible results.  (You know what they say about the definition of insanity.)

Part of your pain, I think, is that you have been on the brink of ‘enlightenment’ but your ego stands firmly in the way.  So you can’t solidly live as an unenlightened being, nor can you live as an enlightened one.  But hey, maybe that’s your path, your purpose - to experience spiritual limbo.

Be well.  Love yourself.  Live fully.  Die happy.