Your Daughter Waits For You

(a response to a cold, insulting, Thanksgiving Eve email from my father)

We have more in common than sets us apart. 
I wish there were more compassion and respect between us, 
however that level of relationship would require both of us to be humble. 
If one side refuses to budge while the other is ready to agree to disagree for the sake of love,
then the relationship might die. 
It takes two.
Spitting and spewing weapons of verbal assault will not help. 

And so we are at a crossroad where I stand weaponless. 
I see you in front of me armed with anything you can get your hands on.
I wait on you drop your weapons, but you must value them more than me. 
We may be here until one of us dies and even after, but my hope is that your hostility will die first. 
I do not ask you to change,but you refuse to let me be as I am. 

Why do you insist that I bend to your will?
I know you think your will is God's.
That there is only one way of believing.
That there is no such thing as interpretation,
although that is an interpretation in itself.
That my marriage is not a marriage and never will be.
That I have been tricked, duped, and brainwashed.
That you have forbidden me to do something as innocent as holding hands in front of you.

The conclusion is this:
I would have to be cut from a precise cookie cutter to win your approval.
There is only one correct and true identity in your belief system.
I can either "choose" to be that or be nothing to you at all.
But I'd rather be myself.
I do not put this pressure on you, but you fight relentlessly against me.
So who is to blame for the tension between us?
My romantic relationship with a third party has nothing to do with you and I.
Yet you take it personally.

You take it as a direct blow and offense against you.
Of course that is ridiculous.
You may not like what I do or believe, but I do not agree with your views either.
Yet I have not shoved my doctrine down your throat.
Somehow still, my existence threatens your belief system.
When I walk into a room, you become possessed by an uncontrollable desire to shout your beliefs at the top of your lungs.
This gets us nowhere.

I have heard your list a million times. What good does it do?
Why do you feel so threatened by me?
I sit here today and tell you that you are free to be you.
However, I wonder just how fragile your belief system is.
It seems that if anyone else exists who believes contrary, then you explode with anger.
Life on the defense doesn't sound fun to me.
I'd rather be so secure in myself, my God, and my beliefs that I can love the most different person than me and not get a single one of my feathers ruffled.

To me, this is peace. I want to live in peace.
I wish you could have it. I wish we could share it.
I am ready to coexist with you.
I am ready to mutually respect each other to the point that neither one of us ever tries to change the other person.
Just be. Let go. Let God. Live on.
Will we ever reach this point?
Here with arms wide open, your daughter waits for you.