By Frankie Glenn
I know that you’re not going to see this, mainly because I’ve blocked you on every known form of social media, but today is an important day.
Today, three years ago, you walked out.
You simply walked into the living room and told our family that you were leaving. You didn’t know when you would be coming back, if at all. I remember panicking and running into the backyard with tears running down my face, only I wasn’t sobbing. The tears were just happening, like a reflex. I was texting and calling my best friend, and mum drove me to her house. It didn’t really sink in that you were walking out. I mean, I was shocked but, at the same time, I really wasn’t surprised at all.
Not many things you did stuck to me while I was growing up: the abuse, missing out on every single one of my dance competitions, or the fact that you prioritized work over your family, but this stuck. This stuck because it was the beginning of a really, really rough three years.
I would learn about the real you, about how much you lied. Over the next three years, you would break my heart over and over and over and over again without you even realizing it. You were the first guy I ever cried over, the first guy to ever make me over think. Instead of turning to people, I turned to something that wouldn’t ask any questions.
Alcohol.
I became an angry alcoholic over you and the fact that so many aspects of my childhood were a lie because of you, angry about how I called you “Dad” for so many years when you never deserved that title. After all, real Dads don’t skip their daughter’s dance competitions to go on a trip with their secret girlfriend.
Alcohol was there for me, it didn’t need a reason, no explanation; it welcomed me with open arms. It helped me cope, helped me “heal.” Alcohol was my best friend, my buddy. It was there when I didn’t want to deal with the problems of this world; it helped me escape to a blissful haven. But soon five shots weren’t enough, and after a while neither were six or seven or eight, and I kept pushing my limit farther and farther until one night I pushed way too hard.
Then I found people that understood, I came to know Jesus, and I started to heal. I became immersed in Salt Company. It was a brand new community to me, one that was built upon faith and love and understanding. I was saved by God’s magnificent grace and suddenly, everything seemed better. I cried all the time because I hadn’t let myself process all the emotions from the past three years and they were finally surfacing. I even threw my last bottle of vodka in the river one dreadful night. It was one of the most difficult things I had done, but telling one of my best friends, “Hey, see that shiny thing in the river? That’s my vodka” was absolutely amazing.
All that being said, I could tell that there was still something off, still something that I had to do. I knew that in order to truly heal and move on in my life, I needed to forgive you. I wrestled back and forth with the idea, always finding a reason to not do it. But deep down, I knew that if I wanted to heal, I needed to forgive the person that hurt me the most.
I remember lying on my dorm bed, with the Food Network on talking about how to make the perfectly roasted duck going off in the background, and I was thinking about when you walked out. I closed my eyes and tears started to gently roll onto my temples because that was it. That was the moment that I could say those three words.
To the first guy to ever break my heart, I forgive you.
I forgive you for being abusive, I forgive you for lying and cheating, I forgive you for messing up so many lives and not caring about it. I forgive you for never wanting to take me to the Daddy/Daughter Dance(s) growing up, making me be the only girl in the entire grade that didn’t go.
I forgive you for the heartbreak.
Independently,
The Girl with a New and Improved Heart