I am homesick. Isn't that silly? I am homesick and I don't have a home to be sick for. I want to go home, yet there is no home for me to run to.
I am homesick for a man. He is the only one to see me as a little girl and see not a plaything, not a body to be used, not a heart to stomp on, not a spirit to break, not a soul to poison. He saw the one thing I have always wanted to be.
A daughter.
I have only ever truly wanted one thing. A father's love. And he has given me a small taste of it. Two years of unabashed devotion and care. As much care as he could muster.
I have spent my life being used and abused by others. He taught me selfishness, in that I don't want him to show anyone but me his fatherly devotion. He taught me carefree-ness, in that I didn't have to be scared he would sell me or give me away while I was with him. I could relax, because I knew he would be there when I opened the door, no matter what or when.
I run to that door now and all I find is emptiness. He has retired, and moved, no longer able in his advanced age to take care of things like he used to. His bones ache, and his mind forgets things so easily now. I email him all the time, but there is no answer. He doesn't understand computers very well.
It is unfair and cruel that he found me so late in his life. But nothing in my life has been fair. I am grateful for the two years I got with him. Another thing I learned while with him was that the old adage that "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" is half true and half false. I am grateful that I now know the loving embrace of a father and of a family. I am bitter that my time in the sun was so short.
When the starved dog is given steak, can you blame him for no longer enjoying the bits of beef thrown his way every now and then as much as he used to?
The heart dies a slow death. Some days I wish he had never found me and taken me in, so that I wouldn't know the bitter taste of loss. It is far easier to suffer a longing for something you never had in the first place. It is so much worse to know how good and safe and life-affirming something is and then to have it snatched away right when you are comfortable and at ease.
