Daddy Issues

I'm still having a hard time dealing with the impending 10th anniversary of my dad's death. The closer it gets, the weirder I get. I told Matt this morning that I think the reason it's hitting me so hard this year, besides the fact that 10 years is simply a significant number, is because being in a relationship has dredged up a lot of insecurities that I wasn't even aware of before, and they can all be traced back to my relationship with my dad.

He made me afraid to express strong emotions, for instance. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of how, suffice to say that it's very scary for me to put myself all out there for Matt and show him how much I love him. I have an irrational fear that if I come on too strong I'm going to push him away, so I tend to hold back. Naturally, he finds this pretty frustrating. But even though I know he doesn't want me to hold back, even though I know how committed he is to me, even though he goes out of his way to make me feel that it's safe to tell him how I feel about him, or about anything, I still can't shake this fear that this time I've gone too far, and if I'm not careful he'll start pulling away. I know it's irrational, but that doesn't make it go away.

So, yeah. Stuff like that.

Basically, I've just been sad all week. Sad that my dad's gone, sad that our relationship sucked and we'll never get a chance to make it better, sad that it's still messing with me and my ability to relate to people 10 years after he's gone... sad, sad, sad. I've been trying to fight it, but that just makes me tired, which makes the sadness even more profound. Pretty much all week I've just wanted to curl into a ball and cry. I actually did that last night. Well, not so much the curling into a ball part, because I was driving at the time and that's just not recommended; but the crying jag lasted pretty much all the way home from Matt's. It threatened to start up again this morning while I was spilling my little heart out to him, but I managed to keep the tears at bay. I make no promises about this evening, though.

In short: I'm a mess. Hopefully, in 3 days I'll be able to just get through the anniversary and then things will be better. Maybe I'll go visit his grave. Maybe I'll even take some flowers. Or maybe I'll just curl up with my fiance, put the past behind me and focus on my future.