I Thought I Didn't Need Him

Yesterday, I was standing in the shower when something hit me. And I mean hit me. There wasn't some dramatic moment leading up to it. No perfectly timed worship song. No journal open in front of me. No profound conversation. Just me by myself, standing in the shower, thinking and feeling everything I had been trying so hard to understand and if I’m honest, NOT feel.

I've been trying to figure out why certain things affect me so deeply. Why feeling wanted can feel so important. Why rejection——-or even the possibility of rejection, can touch something inside of me that feels much bigger and much older than whatever is actually happening in front of me. So instead of trying to make the feeling go away, I started digging and asking myself profound questions.

What am I actually feeling?
Why am I in acceptance of where I am at but this hurt so much?
Why do I want or seek validation from males?
Why do I constantly want to feel chosen YET push men away?

And then it hit me. Almost like a slap of cold water.

My dad didn't choose me. Phew.

There are realizations you have in your head, and then there are realizations that somehow travel through your entire body. This was the second kind. I just stood there thinking about it because I've always considered myself a really strong woman. I'm independent. I'm capable. I'm confident. I've figured things out. I've built things. I've raised children. I've walked through incredibly difficult seasons and somehow kept moving. I've learned how to survive disappointment. I've traveled. I've dreamed. I've created. I've rebuilt.

And somewhere along the way, I think I developed this attitude about not having a father that was basically,
A dad? Who needs one?

I didn't need a man to tell me who I was. I didn't need someone to rescue me. I didn't need a father.

Or so I thought.

Because standing in that shower yesterday, underneath all that strength and independence, there was suddenly this incredibly vulnerable truth staring back at me:

I did need my dad and I’ve been pretending all this time.

I needed him. Not because I wasn't strong enough without him. Not because I needed him to make me whole. I needed him because I was his daughter. I needed to feel chosen by him. I needed to feel protected. I needed to know there was a man in this world who would show up for me simply because I belonged to him. I needed a kind of love I didn't have to perform for. I didn't need to be funny enough, pretty enough, successful enough, helpful enough, easy enough, interesting enough or anything else enough…

I just needed to be a little girl with a dad who loved her.

And realizing that broke something open in me.

Because then I thought about my stepdad. Another man I wanted to fight for me, and from the way I experienced it, he didn't. Then I thought about other male relationships throughout my life. Men who said they cared about me and still continuously hurt me over and over again. Relationships where I didn't always feel like I could be the fullest, loudest, most honest version of myself and still be deeply loved.

And suddenly, there was this thread running through so many different parts of my life that I had never connected before.

Maybe I've spent more of my life wanting male validation than I've ever been willing to admit.

PHEW.

BUT Me? Rocio…

The independent one?

The woman who has spent years thinking, I don't need a man. UGH that one hurt my pride a little. 😂

But when I really sat with it, I could see it. Somewhere inside of me there has been this quiet question I've carried into different relationships without even realizing I was asking it:

Will you choose me for me?

See me. See how deeply I love. See how funny I am. See how adventurous I am. See how hard I work. See how much I care. See my creativity. See my dreams. See my heart. See everything I could bring into your life.

Do you see me now?

And underneath all of that...Am I enough for you to choose me? BUT even with someone choosing me, I pick apart their intentions and push men away.

That is incredibly uncomfortable to admit because I genuinely thought I had moved beyond needing that kind of validation. I'm almost 38 years old. I'm raising children. I've built businesses. I've traveled. I've walked through things I once thought would destroy me. I've become a woman I genuinely like. I am strong.

But maybe that's what I'm finally understanding: being strong doesn't mean there aren't wounded places underneath the strength. Confidence doesn't erase childhood. Independence doesn't mean you never needed anyone. And honestly, convincing yourself you didn't need something doesn't mean you never felt its absence.

Perhaps you know exactly what I mean.

Maybe there’s something you’ve spent years saying didn’t affect you. Maybe you’re the strong one too. The one who handles it. The one who figures it out. The one everyone else calls when their life falls apart.

Maybe you’ve gotten so good at surviving something that you never stopped long enough to admit that you shouldn’t have had to survive it in the first place.

Later that morning, I went to therapy and started talking through all of this. As we dug deeper into everything happening in my life right now, my therapist said something that made me look at this entire season differently.

On top of everything I’m recognizing….I'm grieving four things right now.

Three people who I can’t talk too and a marriage.

Four deep, life-altering, identity-shifting losses happening in the same season.

And suddenly I thought... Rocio. Of course this hurts.

I think sometimes I've been expecting myself to function normally while carrying an extraordinary amount of grief. I've wondered why I'm so emotional some days. Why something seemingly small can completely knock the wind out of me. Why I can feel hopeful and excited one day and then incredibly heavy the next. Why I'm tired. Why my emotions sometimes feel like they're sitting directly underneath my skin.

But grief doesn't organize itself neatly.

It doesn't say, Okay, today we're going to process Person Number One from 2:00 to 4:00, and tomorrow we'll work on processing the loss of my marriage.

Wouldn't that be convenient? 😂

Grief overlaps. One loss touches another. One rejection wakes up an older rejection. One goodbye reminds your body of another goodbye. Something happening today can reach backward decades and touch a little girl who thought she had already gotten over something.

And just maybe you’ve experienced that too. Something happens and your reaction feels almost too big for the moment. You wonder, Why is this affecting me so much? Why can’t I just let this go? Why does this hurt this badly?

Maybe the feeling isn’t too big.

Maybe it’s just carrying more history than you realized.

And then suddenly you're standing in the shower realizing:

Oh. This isn't only about today.

I'm grieving people. I'm grieving relationships. I'm grieving what I thought certain relationships would become. I'm grieving things I needed from people and didn't receive. I'm grieving versions of the future I imagined. I'm grieving a marriage. And maybe, in some strange way, I'm also grieving for younger versions of myself who learned how to become strong because being strong felt safer than admitting:

I needed someone, and they weren't there. That's a completely different kind of grief.

For years, saying I didn't need my dad felt strong. It felt independent. It felt almost empowering.

But maybe the stronger truth is this:

I needed my dad, and I survived not having what I needed.

Those are two very different statements.

One dismisses the little girl I was. The other finally acknowledges her.

And I think I'm finally ready to acknowledge her.

Not pity her. Not blame every decision I've ever made on what happened to her. Not spend the rest of my life stuck in the past. Just acknowledge what was true.

She needed her dad. She wanted to be chosen. She wanted someone to fight for her. She wanted to know she was worth showing up for. And when she didn't receive those things, she learned how to be strong. Really unrealistically strong and she learned to build things from this absence.

But maybe the woman she became doesn't have to keep proving that strength anymore to anyone.

Maybe she doesn't have to keep auditioning for love. Maybe she doesn't have to convince someone to see her. Maybe she doesn't have to show someone every beautiful thing about herself hoping it'll make them stay or to pick her. Maybe she doesn't have to shrink the loud parts of herself or hide the complicated ones. Maybe she doesn't have to become easier, prettier, funnier, more successful, more interesting or more lovable.

Maybe she gets to simply be.

And this is where my faith enters this story…not as some pretty little bow that suddenly makes everything hurt less, because it doesn't. I love Jesus deeply, and I still have wounds. I trust God, and I still grieve. I believe He has been with me, and I can still admit there were things I desperately needed from people that I didn't receive.

Those truths don't cancel each other out. I get to feel them and whatever you’re going through, you need to feel it also.

And maybe, God isn't asking me to pretend those wounds don't exist. Maybe He's finally bringing me into a season where I feel safe enough to look at them, alone, with only Him. AND let me tell you it’s HARD!!!!

And there's another uncomfortable truth I have to face:
I don't want to carry these wounds into whatever relationship God may have for me in the future.

If I want a healthy love someday, I have work to do now.

I don't want to enter another relationship secretly asking a man to prove that I'm worthy. I don't want every moment of distance to feel like abandonment. I don't want to need constant reassurance that I'm still wanted. I don't want to perform, overgive, shrink, cling, push away, or become someone I'm not because somewhere inside of me I'm terrified that if I'm fully myself, I won't be chosen. I don’t want to live life superficially because God created me differently.

And when I look backward with this new awareness, I can see places where my own wounds have affected how I've shown up with men. There have been times when fear, insecurity, the need for reassurance, or the desire to feel chosen have entered relationships with me and my marriage. That doesn't mean everything that happened was my fault. Other people are also responsible for how they treated me, just as I am responsible for how I showed up.

Both things can be true.

That's a hard kind of accountability, but I think it's a necessary one.

Because I don't just want someone in the future.

I want to be healthy enough to receive healthy love.

I want to be able to meet the person God has for me someday without asking him to repair every place another man wounded. I want him to be my partner, not the proof that I'm worthy. I want to love him because of who he is, not because his attention temporarily quiets an old ache inside of me.

And I want to walk into that relationship as myself.

The Rocio who is Loud. Creative. Emotional. Adventurous. Faithful. Complicated. Funny. Dreaming ridiculously big dreams. Helping people. Spontaneous….All of it.

I don't want to spend another chapter of my life convincing someone to choose me, EVER.

I want to become so rooted in who God says I am that when love comes again, I can simply stand there as myself and allow another person to know me.

And then we choose each other.

Maybe that's part of why God is allowing me to see all of this now and having me do this by myself.

Not because I'm being punished or because I need to become perfect before I'm worthy of love.
And definitely not because healing guarantees some perfect relationship at the end.

But because I want to love differently next time.

Healthier. Freer.

Without constantly looking over my shoulder for abandonment.

Without confusing being wanted with being worthy.

Without asking another human being to heal a wound they didn't create.

I've spent so much time thinking about what it means for a woman to bloom. I literally built something from nothing called And She Bloomed. AND I'm realizing more and more that blooming isn't just becoming happier, stronger, prettier, more confident or more successful.

Sometimes blooming is digging.

It's getting your hands dirty enough to find the root that's been quietly growing underneath your decisions, relationships and reactions for years.

Yesterday, I found one. And it hurt because I KNOW I have hurt people because of this. I pride myself with saying I don’t like to hurt people but somehow unintentionally I have been… for years…

And maybe that’s why I’m sharing this with you.

Because maybe while you’ve been reading my story, something inside of you has been whispering about yours.

Maybe your root isn’t a father. Maybe it’s a mother. A marriage. A friendship. Someone who left. Someone who stayed but hurt you. Someone whose approval you’ve spent years trying to earn. Maybe it’s something completely different.

But maybe there’s a sentence you’ve been saying for years that sounds a lot like mine:

I didn’t need them anyway.
It wasn’t that big of a deal.
I’m over it.
I’m fine.

Maybe you are strong. But maybe there’s also a younger version of you underneath all that strength who deserves to finally hear you say:

That hurt me.

You don’t have to have the answer today. I certainly don’t. This realization is barely a day old. I haven’t processed decades of emotions in twenty-four hours. I went to therapy. I talked. I cried. I processed. I prayed.

Maybe you don’t need a five-step healing plan today either.

Maybe you just need to get quiet enough to ask: Where did this actually begin?

And then have the courage to listen when the answer comes.

And today I'm still sitting with it.

But maybe that's exactly what The Roots is supposed to be.

Because maybe healing doesn’t always begin when the pain disappears. Maybe it begins when we finally stop telling ourselves we shouldn’t still hurt or for me…it’s helping everyone else before our pain. Maybe it’s when we stop judging the younger versions of ourselves for what they needed or maybe when we stop asking other people to prove our worth.

When we finally bring those buried places to God and say:
Here. This still hurts. I think I’m finally ready to look at it.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m bringing it directly to God. I’m bringing it to therapy. I’m bringing it back to myself and digging deeper into my roots.

And if you’re digging through some roots of your own right now, maybe you can sit here with me for a while.

You don’t have to have it all figured out.
Neither do I.

We can be strong people who still have tender places. We can love Jesus and still grieve. We can forgive and still acknowledge what hurt. We can be incredibly hopeful about where we’re going while still mourning what happened behind us.

And we can stop treating healing like something we need to hurry through so we can get back to being strong.

Maybe this is strength too.

Looking at the wound. Naming it. Giving it to God. Doing the work. And choosing not to carry it untouched into the next chapter.

I’m grieving. I’m healing. I’m learning. I’m digging.

Maybe you are too.

And somewhere underneath all of this, where nobody else can see it yet...
some new roots are growing and some roots are finally being pulled.

— Rocio

The Roots | And She Bloomed
The stories underneath the bloom.