My Love for Dad | Moscow

Here’s a plot twist I didn’t foresee happening when I packed up my bags in Detroit + NYC, and embarked on my one-way flight to Moscow: (a) working with my dad + (b) having our relationship blossom into one of a mutual respect + love.
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Yes. LOVE. I know 🙃 — after a difficult, lengthy chapter of misunderstandings, conflicts, + resentment, I can truly say that I love my Father, oh so deeply. It’s the kind of love where I get sad when he leaves + happy when he returns. Reminiscent of my childhood, instead of conjuring up anxiety as it would for many years, it brings out peace. I am confident in his love for me just the way it is.
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You must be saying “your father has always loved you”. True. But the difference btwn then + now is that I’ve stopped expecting him to love me differently. I’ve LET GO of EXPECTING him to be anyone other than who he is. Which includes THE WAY HE LOVES. I accept him + his love, fully.
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What this has done is provided a full freedom for ME to fill up the rest of me. To take responsibility to LOVE ME, instead of waiting to receive from him (or anybody else for that matter), or adjusting myself to predict how I could get him to love me more, or to prove that I am lovable. I AM. Always have been. Except now I know it deeply. Cellularly.
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By him, yes. But most importantly by ME. That freedom — of letting go of my expectations of him, letting him be who he is — allowed me to dive into the newly carved out space I had previously hoarded w/anxiety + fear that he doesn’t love me.
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With this newfound space I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO FILL (me in) ON MY OWN. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Slowly exploring ways in which I could learn to love myself. The more I filled up, the more I blooomed. And then? Then I was able to EMBRACE the love he‘d always had for + around me.
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You see: when you ARE LOVE, you’re no longer seeking love bc you know (even when you’re alone) that it’s always around you.
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Thank you, Papa 🖤 + thank you Me.