My Final Say

Written by Heather from Surviving Motherhood

I rarely hear from my father. We have one of those relationships where we both know the other is fine if we don't hear from them and we get in touch once every few months and at birthdays / Christmases etc for a chat. So, when I woke the other morning to find I had a text message from him I was happy to hear from him and was expecting the usual "Hi, how are you? We are fine, just seeing if there is anything Little Moo wants for her birthday" or similar.

I was NOT expecting to find a message that said "...have just read what you wrote about me on your website and am not happy. I am very hurt and upset that you would write this and humiliated that the whole world now knows what you think of me...".

Oh holy fuck!

The second I read it, I knew what he was referring to.

A post I wrote when I had gotten back from visiting him and was very worried about his situation.

The post I wrote wasn't flattering but it wasn't hate filled by any stretch, more pointing out his failings and worrying about it happening again. Not something anyone would want to read about themselves and certainly not something you want to see on the internet where anyone can read it.

I fucked up, big time.

I am mortified and devastated that I had hurt him this way, I felt physically sick and could think about nothing else. I had to keep it together as we had a house guest but inside I was so upset and angry with myself. Reading it from his perspective I could see how damning it would read as I neglected to mention all the great things about him; what a wonderful person he is, what a great father, how much I love and miss him, how I would never want to hurt him and never want him to know those thoughts that I wrote.

It's too late for all that now though, the damage has been done.

I have, in case you haven't noticed, closed down my blog for now, I don't think it will ever be resurrected and so I guess this is goodbye from Surviving Motherhood.

I say this with pain in my heart as I have gotten to know so many of you and I shall continue to read your blogs and run TopBlogMag but shan't be writing at Surviving Motherhood anymore.

I have so many emotions about it, anger being the biggest.

Anger that I wrote the damn thing.
Anger that he went looking for me in the first place.
Anger that I wasn't more careful about hiding my blog.
Anger that I should have had to.
Anger that he dug through months of archives and post after post of what are obviously private feelings before coming across the ONE post on my blog that was about a family member.
Anger that I no longer have a secret place to hide and vent.
Anger that all that time and emotion spent writing those posts, baring my soul has only brought about these feelings of pain, anger and sadness.
Anger that I wrote the damn thing.

All for nothing.

I didn't realise before how much writing things down and posting them helps me deal with stuff and although I have read those same words on many peoples blogs before I didn't really understand what they meant until this happened. I miss it, I miss not being able to empty my head in that way anymore, I miss that feeling of reaching out and touching people, connecting with people that I have never met, in a way you could never do with people in 'real life'.

However, time has come that I have to find another way to deal with these things, another place to hide and vent.

Incidentally, if you Google your email address, or just the first part of it before the @ sign you might be surprised at what comes up.

I know I was.