I thought my dad wouldn’t let me down

I have truly believed, from the bottom of my heart, that my father would never let me down.

On a Thursday afternoon, I was watching the clock waiting for my parents to come back from work. I had got home from school, grabbed some food and started doing homework, trying to get as much done as possible before my dad arrived. It was 2.30 pm and I had 2 more hours to wait!

But, as much as I had tried to focus on the homework, my thought kept flying to the moment when dad would arrive. I kept imagining how he would come home and then we would go together to the bookstore. Uh, it is just thirty-five past two! Such a long time left!

A day before, my father had promised to come with me to buy me a new school bag that I had chosen. The first school bag I had chosen! It was black and had a drawing of a cat’s piercing green eyes.

I has started doing my maths homework to make time pass by faster. I loved Mathematics and kept thinking that perhaps this way I would not feel the minutes of waiting… besides, the Maths teacher was pretty strict and gave us a lot of homework, so I had to hurry to finish the homework for the following day.

Let me look at the clock again… I cannot wait for dad to get home.

We would walk by the high-school, cross the park and head for the bookstore, on Trajan Avenue. It would be so great!

I will enter the bookstore with my father and I will ask for the black schoolbag with the cat and I will ask dad to check it is all right.

What time is it? Uhhh, one more hour left to wait…

Let me solve a few more Maths problems.

If only dad came already!

And we will stroll through the city centre and it will be just me and dad. He is actually coming with me to buy the schoolbag! And he knows it it is good or not. And he can give me advice. It is really important that he come with me and helps me buy it. He really knows this stuff! And now, it is really special, because most time sit is mom who comes shopping with me. Dad hardly ever comes. He also doesn’t talk much with me. But yesterday he promised he would come home earlier and then we would go together. Somebody rings the doorbell. I run to answer.

It is mom…

But this time I was waiting for dad to come home earlier because he had promised a tad sooner so that we would go together to the bookstore before it closes.

It is only half past four and if dad does not get home soon, we will have no more time go and buy the schoolbag.

I was already dressed, ready to leave the house, as soon as dad came!

I stand up from the chair, I cannot do homework anymore, I just have no more patience. I start pacing the room up and down, going around the house.

Mom asks me why I’m on pins and needles.

I am waiting for dad.

I check the clock for the umpteenth time, the old clock that grandma gave us, brown, with a golden framework and Roman digits… 5 minutes to 5. If he doesn’t come now, we will no longer be able to go together.

I run into mom in the dining room and – tears in my eyes – tell her dad had not come yet…

He is most likely not going to make it, mom says.

No, he will, he promised me he would come. I know he will come. He said we would go together. I walk around the rooms some more, pass by the hall and finally stop in the kitchen, watching the entrance door, all ears listening for the elevator. I am sitting and staring at the white door, with a blue lock and I feel every beating of my heart. I am listening so intently to each movement in the building that I feel I can hear how Mrs Tarta on the fourth floor is giving her son little Cezar a clip round the ear hole. I hear the elevator. I am holding my breath…one minute left. If he is not coming now, we can no longer go together. The elevator stops, the doors open, someone is getting out, but when the door closes, I realize the lift stopped at 4. To convince myself, I go to the entrance door, maybe I was wrong. No. It went to the fourth floor.

I look at the clock. 5 past 5. Dad did not come. Even if he comes now, it is too late…

He did not come… I run to my mom, tears in my eyes, dad did not come.

And he promised…

Mom says I should not be surprised, she knew he would not come.

A world crumbles inside me.

From the bottom of my soul, I actually believed that my dad would never disappoint me. I believed I can count on him. That if he promises, he does. I believed that if he did not really talk to me and he still decides to accompany me to buy a schoolbag, it means that I am important for him. I believed that if he had promised, it is important to him, too.

I went to my room and cried a lot.

I heard my father come home late. I did not even go out of my room to greet him. I was so upset with him that I did not even want to talk to him.

Dad did not come home in time to come with me to buy the black schoolbag with the picture of the green-eyes cat. Yes, I really wished he had kept his word and showed me how important I was to him.

Let me tell you what happened.

When you put someone up on a pedestal, you condemn yourself to experience disappointment. Putting someone on the pedestal, means seeing only (or mainly) the positive side of this person. Then, based on this observation, you start generalizing: he is always like this.

He is always polite, never rude.

She is always generous, never cheap.

He is always fair, never tried to cheat.

When my father promises something he always does it. He never disappoints.

The problem is that all the statements above are not true because they do not respect the Law of Duality. So they are not in balance.

The Law of Duality states that each person has both a trait and it opposite. And the two parts are equal. That is, an individual can be both polite and impolite, both generous and cheap, both fair and unfair, both trustworthy and unreliable, in equal proportions.

So, every time you place somebody on a pedestal, you will only see half the truth.

But the Universe seeks equilibrium. So, it will bring you experiences through which you can also see the half you have been ignoring, so as to learn love.

I think the first people to teach us the law of Duality are our parents.

If they are on a pedestal, it will be very difficult for us to evolve, to outgrow them, to go further than they have. Because our parents are perfect and if we outgrow them, we show them more can be accomplished. That is, we show them they are not good enough.

If our parents disappoint us, and we also see their other side, we have an equilibrated view, with good and bad. They are human, whole, and perfect in their imperfection.

When my father did not come, I saw his other side. The one of being unreliable. And no matter how upset I was with him, he was still my father and I still loved him. But when I projected on him the image of perfection (when I believed he would always keep his promise), I attracted the other half (that of not keeping his promises), so that things go back to equilibrium.
Fathers must disappoint their daughters so that they can move on, grow, spread their wings and fly away.

If fathers are always there for their daughters, the daughters’ independence would be less probable, it would be hard for them to find their path (because they live in somebody’s shadow) and even more, it would be hard to find a man that is good enough.

Today, I am where I am, in this beautiful place, because my father disappointed me. I have left home to look for my way because my father disappointed me.

I have the beautiful family I have because my father disappointed me. I aimed to have a genuine relationship with Ștefan and Elena, where we love and respect each other as we are, with good and bad.

I have the financial independence (as much as I do), because my father disappointed me and I learned that I can also manage on my own. I learned that sometimes you can count on those next to you and other times you can’t.

I work with dedication and I do what I love because (by disappointing me) my father gave me the freedom to find my own way. He chose to give me a lesson, out of love and perhaps divine inspiration, which made me ceaselessly look for and understand the way we humans work (the universal laws). And by doing this, I can help and serve you with Monday messages. If my father had not disappointed me, this message would never have existed.

Tears of gratitude for my father are now running down my cheeks.

If you are a father, relax, you need not try to be perfect. You already are. You will offer your daughter support and challenges, so that she can grow up in a balanced and harmonious way.

If you are a daughter, relax, it all happened for you. Your father let you down because he trusted that you could fly higher than him.

Please write me know which disappointment made you fly higher and which disappointment helped you grow the most.

Monica ION