She doesn’t know the sound of my voice anymore.
Not the real one.
Not the one that sang her to sleep.
Not the one that whispered her name through panic, grief, and guilt.
She knows what she’s been told.
Maybe some version of the truth.
Maybe none of it.
But here’s mine.
I Didn’t Leave. I Got Lost.
This isn’t an excuse.
This isn’t a plea.
It’s just the truth.
I was in survival mode.
Caught in a storm of backlash, shame, fear, and failure.
Trying to outrun headlines and self-hatred at the same time.
And in the middle of that,
I missed her.
Missed her birthdays.
Missed her drawings.
Missed the version of me I wanted her to know.
No one took that away from me.
I lost it.
Because I wasn’t ready to be steady.
Because I didn’t know how to hold something that pure while I was coming undone.
She Didn’t Deserve My Collapse
My daughter didn’t sign up to be the daughter of a headline.
She didn’t ask for a father who made promises he couldn’t keep.
And even if I was hurting
Even if I was trying
Even if I was drowning
She still needed a dad.
And I wasn’t there.
That’s not just a regret.
It’s a responsibility I carry now, every day.
I Don’t Want Redemption. I Want to Be Worthy of Her One Day
There’s a difference between asking for forgiveness
and becoming someone worthy of it.
That’s what I’m doing now.
No shortcuts.
No PR campaign.
Just steady work.
One day, she might read these words.
Maybe she’ll find them by accident.
Maybe someone will show her.
If that day comes,
I want her to know the truth.
Not the version painted by critics.
Not the version I performed.
But the real one.
I never stopped thinking about her.
I never stopped loving her.
I just stopped being visible—because I didn’t know how to be anything but broken.
What I’m Doing Now
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I write her letters I may never send
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I work on myself, not to impress anyone, but to become someone she could one day talk to without fear
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I speak her name with care, not ownership
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I tell the truth even when it hurts, especially when it hurts
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I stay present, even when the past tries to pull me under again
Final Thought
You don’t get to rewrite history.
You don’t get to undo absence.
But you do get to show up differently from this moment forward.
I was a father before I was a headline.
And I still am.
Even if she doesn’t call me that yet.
I am the man who failed.
And I am the man trying to make something honest out of what’s left.
If she ever reads this,
I just hope she sees that I didn’t stop caring.
I only stopped knowing how to show it.
But I’m learning now.
And I won’t stop learning until I’m ready to meet her with my eyes open and my ego gone.