Getting Personal

I was reading other English journal and discovered that a lot of them are very personal with a lot of emotions and feelings behind them. I am not sure if that is the right thing to do with an English journal but thought I would give it a try and not consider for a second what one might think of me when they read this. I have a really rough time sharing things with people, but want to share what I think this stems from. When I was growing up, I felt like my mother rejected me. I don't think that it was really anything to do with me, but it was the fact that I was not the boy my father wanted her to have. My father loved me for the tom BOY I was. It was not really that I wanted to be that tom BOY, it was that I wanted acceptance from my father and mother. Everything that came out of my father mouth about me, was that..your not a boy. He wasn't saying it with anger, he was saying it as if, If I was to be a boy then he would have let me go to all the ball games. If I were a boy I could have went to the movies with my friends. If I were a boy I could have gone to work with him during the summer. What didn't make much sense though was everything he did, right down to the gifts he himself purchased me were all boy toys. I remember I got a semi truck for Christmas because it was what I liked to play with. I never once even through my teenage years shared with him that I wanted more than anything to be a girl. I wanted to go and get my hair done and have fake nails put on and painted. I wanted all that. My very first car was even a car that every teenage boy would have dreamed to have gotten from their father. My mother also would be a constant reminder about how my father loved his son when he was born, so of course I strive to be what my father wanted and that was a little tom BOY. I still to this day look back and blame this rejection on my mother. Yes my father wanted a boy, but what about the little girl that every mother dreams of? Where was all the frill and lace? Where was the talks about boys, and how to be a lady? There was never any. I had a conversation about my childhood with my dad about a month ago and he was talking about girls and what they are like growing up, now that he has raised three. He was commenting about them painting on their eyelashes and how expensive they were etc..etc... and I said that wasn't true, and he said... it wasn't true for you Lorna. He says, you were not a ordinary girl. At that moment I wanted to tell him that no I wasn't, but it wasn't because I didn't want to be, it was because I was never given the chance or treated like one. My mother left me when I was 16, she left many times before that. She first left me when I was 9. I then moved in with my father. I shortly went back to her when she was ready. Then she left me again when I was 12. At that point I had to go to court and tell the judge where it was that I wanted to live. Of course I said my Father's, which tore out my mothers heart I am sure. I did not decide my fathers for me, I decided my fathers for my little brother that came along after me. I knew that he was my fathers pride and joy... a miracle in my dads eye that he got what he always wanted. A son to pass everything down to. How could I tear that away from him? I knew the judge was going to place us together what ever my choice was, so I really had no choice. After that, but right when it seemed that I needed a mom the most, my mother often told me when I turned to her that "I had a father, ask him" I know now that she didn't do it to hurt me, it was done because I had hurt her. Still not a price a child my age should have had to paid. After that time with my mother wasn't really time at all. I spent most of my years with my father, helping with my brother. All through those years I was never taught anything a girl needed to know, but instead was secluded form society, as that was his way to protect me. Keep her here, fishing, playing in the mud and away from boys. It wasn't a bad idea really as I was a good student in school and never got mixed up in anything. Then came the day that mom left for good, I was 16 years old. It seemed to me that this was the years that I needed her to be their and educate me about what it is like to be a woman. I often laugh because, one of the silly things that drove me insane one day when I was growing, was that little extra string inside shirts... I think it is to keep it on the hanger, but If I had only had a mom, I would know for sure. I do know how to keep house and look after children, my father taught me that. But no one ever taught me how to put on makeup, or why girls should behave a certain way. I feel like it has shaped who I am today, some I am glad about, because I can fend for myself. I am very kind hearted but can make my own way and don't need anyone else. SO I think. But on the other hand, I am not sure what my part is as a lady in the house... I guess what ever I make it? As I get older I can see and learn from other outside sources, but sometimes when I see something now, I think to myself is that something all girls know? Am I just now seeing it? I feel a lot of times that as a woman I am cut very short. I did have other women in my life. I had a step mom, she was kind, but never a mom to me. never took me shopping like her daughters. I never needed that black skirt that my step sisters couldn't live without. I was never neglected, she was a friend to me when I went to her, she just never came to me and mothered me. I have often wanted to find a mentor and see what it is like to follow a woman around to see what she is like. To see if she is like me, or if I am that girl my dad says.... very different. When I was growing up, my dad often told me to come out of my mole hole, that was him referring to my room. I never understood why, now I sometimes wish I would have. Maybe I wouldnt have missed out on so much girl talk.