Love Conquers All

I would like to thank the people at Facebook for opening up a portal into my past. Never before has it been so easy to connect with familiar faces from my past life in Jordan. From relatives to classmates, they now all know what I have been up to for the last 6-10 years. I can't give Facebook all the credit, initially I couldn't contain my excitement to reconnect with a life that I had left so abruptly. The portal can sometimes feel like a Pandora's box, particularly until I discovered how to use the privacy settings. Either way, it has become pretty much the main form of communication I have with my brothers who I haven't seen in 6 years. Telephone of course would have been simpler, but the prospect of having to deal with my father or have him listen in on the calls did not appeal to me.

On this day, my youngest brother was chatting with me on Facebook IM (I LOVE THIS THING!!) and asked why I haven't called in so long. I truly felt bad for being so self-absorbed, I immediately bought a calling card online and dialed the number. I did not pay attention to the fact that it was almost midnight when I called due to the time difference. This meant that surely my father would be the one answering. True to form, I hear his "Hello" on the other end of the line.

Although I am about to come into my 30th year, I still have a momentary panic when I hear that "hello" on the phone. Do I hang up? Do I try to be amicable? Do I just ask to speak to my brothers? Something told me to just talk this time. It had been months since I had spoken to my father and I really hadn't planned on starting again that day, but it seemed it was destined to be. My mind drifted momentarily to the subject of astrology. As I count down the days to my first Saturn return coming to an end, I am reminded that the planet Saturn is associated with our fathers. I can't help but smile, I had been mentally preparing for this for months now; my showdown vis-a-vis Saturn and my father

The conversation starts out with my father reminding me of my age ("Two weeks away from your 30th birthday, is it not?") and my marital status ("Is marriage not a part of your agenda?"). Having never believed in quitting while I was ahead, I trekked on, instilled with the confidence of my new found "life lessons". "I have no agenda", I said. "All plans and agendas went out the window when I decided to leave home over 6 years ago."

Logic plays a key role in any discussion I have with my father. My father may as well have invented logic, because he adored the use of it so much. However, I am my father's daughter in many ways after all. As such, my desire to be "right" powered by infallible logic has been inherited from him. I know now that that only leads me down roads of self-victimization as well as passive aggressive behavior. Not engaging in this behavior with my father during our chat is a struggle, to say the least. What proved to be even harder is not resenting him for my increased responsibilities in relation to my family due to his lack of financial support.

Acceptance was my only agenda for continuing the conversation. The belief that acceptance of my father for who he is would allow me to remove myself from the victim mentality, a mentality that has been passed down through generations of my family. "I respect your beliefs and accept you for who you are," I explained to my father. "You don't respect my beliefs because you wont listen to them," he retorted while launching into a diatribe regarding my mother, sisters and I. The all too familiar diatribe has become a broken record and reminded me why I stopped speaking to him in the first place.

"I tried my best to live up to your beliefs and framework, but I knew it wasn't me and I would never be happy. I made a choice to leave, even if it was for fear of my life, and I accept the consequences of my choice." I continued to explain to him that his lack of acceptance is the reason for the breakdown of the family. Just like he cannot change who he is, we cannot change who we are, and it is only love and acceptance that can bridge those gaps. Blame was not in my agenda, it was more about understanding. I was holding on to that slight possibility of finding some common ground. My discourse continued for a while while I tried to reach that spot of unconditional love that I was led to believe a father carries for his family. Tears started to roll down my face as I realized that his ideals and inflexibility have made unconditional love an impossibility for him. His ideals had taken over where his heart has failed him.

Such ideals are responsible for war, intolerance, and hatred. When a man can denounce his daughter for marriage to someone of another faith while in the same breath drawing lines of comparison to prostitution, it is no wonder why the Middle East is in the state it is in now. In those minutes on the phone, it was finally clear to me, he was just incapable of the love that I thought I deserved out of a father. He was incapable of accepting anything that did not fit in with his beliefs. His brainwashing was utter and complete; brainwashing that I failed to conform with.

Sadness overtook me. I have spent my life believing that love conquers all. I still believe that. Society, culture, religion, beliefs, ideals....they just seem to get in the way. They were not put into place for that purpose, but the age of information has challenged many of those ideals, allowing fundamentalism and extremism to rear its ugly head. Religion and spirituality is a beautiful thing. The belief in a higher power and striving for a greater good, how can that be bad? However, when we turn those tenets into swords of judgement and self-righteousness, we have created a world of black and white; right and wrong. In these modern times of infinite shades of gray, how do you fit in? How can you find that acceptance for which we crave? Unfortunately, we can't.

I spent an entire life in a struggle to be myself. I never understood how if I wanted so badly to be myself, why was it so hard? After all, who could know me better than I know myself? Self-acceptance is what I lacked. How could I accept and love myself if I had been conditioned to believe that so many things about my true self were so horrible, based on all the ideals I had been raised with? Denial of the self is the biggest crime we commit towards ourselves. In those thirty minutes spent speaking to my father, I realized I finally approve of myself and have accepted that he never will

I may never have a relationship with my father, but at least I can come to terms with the fact that its no one's fault. At least now I can accept that I am no longer a victim of society, and in that decision, I realize my true power.

Love does conquer all, or shall I say, self-love conquers all.