Begin at the Beginning

I talked to my dad and little brother today on webcam. I love that fact that, even 1,000 miles away, I can see my adorable little brother. He seems so excited to talk and to show me his new toys. I only wish I could hug him.
He sang "You Are My Sunshine" for me, though his version of it was actually "You Are Mine Sunshine." It's the song Daddy sings to him before bed. I told him that Daddy used to sing that to me, too.
I was very happy to know that my dad is doing everything he can to give my little brother a good life.
I was nostalgic, too. I suddenly remembered writing a new verse for that song. (I can't remember it now; that was at least 14 years ago.)
My dad then reminded me about a song I sang for him in front of an audience at the Father's Day picnic where his band was playing.
Remembering it now, sad to say, I feel a little embarassed.

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If anyone should ask me
To do something that's bad,
I'll shake my head,
And tell them "NO!"
Then I'll be like my dad.

I thought it was the best thing ever. I thought he was the best thing ever. It wasn't until a few years later that I learned he was doing "something that's bad."

Suffice to say that from the time I was about 12 years old (when my parents split up) until about two years ago, my dad was in and out of rehab six times for drug addiction.

Everyone, at some point, realizes that daddy is not Superman. I wish I had come to this realization in a different way. I wish I had simply reached a certain level of maturity and understanding in the world when I realized that Daddy doesn't know everything. He is human. The fall from god to human is much less devastating than that of god to monster.

--Let me take an aside here to say that my dad is not a monster. He is a human, and he struggled with his addiction as humans do. At the time, though, in my confused and devastated point of view, he was a monster.--

That was when I truly began to hurt myself.

If you really want to dig deeper, take a closer look at my childhood, you will see isolated incidences of self-injury long before that.

I'm not going to delve into said incidences. I feel they are irrelevant.

So there it is. The beginning. The time when childhood ended.

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He has now been clean for quite some time, and living a relatively normal life. I cannot even begin to express how happy... relieved... proud that makes me feel. I am immensely glad that he can be for my little brother what he--because of his addiction at the time--could not fully be for me and my older brother.