I used to think it was a blessing to be just like him.
And if I'm honest, perhaps I still do.
But I laugh at our vices: the poisons we swallow, we breathe, to satiate the unaddressed stress. Springing out from our heads like Athena's birth: the unspoken traumas, our dutiful people pleasing demanding perfection, or sometimes the validated anxieties.
My arms and wrists were burned yanking cigarettes from his mouth; and decades later, here I am sucking a nic vape like water because I'm dialing back on the nicotine. Life is still stressful and doesn't care about my good intentions. It's nothing more than a casual exhale to the giant apparatus that is the universe. It's something he would resonate with-- when has life ever given a damn about his best intentions?
My Uncle lived with us briefly; he moved in the summer between my first and second grade. Over that summer, my Dad was empowered; for better, and worse. In the course of two-ish months, I collected their beer bottle caps.
In that time I amassed at least three fully stuffed gallon ziplock bags of the bottle caps. In Fall Out terms: I was the most fucking loaded kid you had ever seen.
I brought them in for show and tell, to my drunk Uncle's eager encouragement. Oddly, show and tell stopped after that week.
I write all of this with my own drink in front of me. I'm not free of his vices but certainly have a taste. Instead of my Dad's 6-18 drinks in an evening, I have 1-3.
Somehow, he has swallowed enough sorrow-- an abundance of anxiety, doubt, plus plenty of pain-- enough vices, to dilute my need to rely on these things.
Is there anything more that a parent could hope for?
Reality isn't painless, and some traumatic events simply cannot be prevented by a parent. Even with the best intentions, we are all only human.
My Dad has given me one of the most precious gifts a person can give to their children: something better.
He isn't perfect, and I don't have to be either. But I can keep being better. I can hope, change, grow and protect my (future) kid even better because he made the choices he did.
I am very thankful to be your daughter, Dad.
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