the paternal wound

a few days ago, i did something that i would have never thought to do in the last decade, i called my father. all this gutting out i have experienced in the last six years has prepared me to face him. the disfunction of our relationship and the anger, hatred, and confusion, that i feel toward him is overwhelming. even as i write, it is a lump in my throat and a stinging in my eyes that compels me to let it all out.


i am aware that the paternal wound has been something i have struggled with for the greater part of my life. people commonly refer to this as “daddy issues.” i detest that reference. i think it cheapens and invalidates the human experience of someone who is trying to make sense of this wound and how to live with it. the pervasive nature of its ability to seep into every relationship alone can be debilitating. i finally feel that i am in a space to begin to face it and make peace with it.


my genetic father is someone i never knew. i have never even so much as seen a photograph of him to compare if we look like one another. i look like my mother a bit, but really i look like no one. there is a pain in that, too. the not knowing of who you actually resemble and how to inhabit your features. when you cannot see yourself in another, it feeds the narrative that maybe in fact you are invisible. it causes me to ask: did i really come from someone?


the man who did raise me, whom i interchangeably refer to as my father/step-father is a person i feared growing up. in some ways, i fear him still. he was militant in the way he ran our household. i think in his mind, our home, his wife, and the children were just another replica of the Sudanese war front. we all walked on eggshells around him, especially me, because i was the eldest. 


although not his through biology, i was the head of six kids and the one who had to make it because i was expected to. i had to set an example. and for a long while, it was instilled in me to accept the failure of my younger brothers and sisters as a fault that belonged to me. i can see clearly now that all my self-sacrificing, challenges with romantic relationships, inability to trust, and knots of guilt i have had to work through come from this paternal wound. how then does such an enormous pain point transform? surely it takes more than a phone call.


he is not the type of man who will sit across the table from me and account for all his wrongdoings against me, African culture doesn’t really breed that, at least not from his generation. even if he were to admit to the enumeration of his offenses, would that satisfy the inner me? would it make him become the father i needed? 


we continue to learn through our evolution as beings of light that our own healing is our responsibility. so lately, my prayer to my guides and teachers is to carve out all that is festering in me, make me hollow, cleanse me deeply, so that all that filters through me is light.


it is me then, who will have to offload this boulder from my heart and be the father i needed. to go layer by layer, until all that remains is a limitless well of compassion and love.


what is that you are growing through? how has Queen Corona shifted the way you see yourself from the inside? i would love to know --- send me a note!


may you be cleansed from the inside, may you become hollow, so that all that filters through you is light.

big love,

Max & Nya.