Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck?

Instead I find myself thinking of you more often these days, and I even catch myself wanting to cry like I did all too often all those years ago when I was still so angry at how unfair it all seemed. It hurt then because it was fresh; it hurts now because I have a greater capacity for it - an unintended side effect of growing up.

I thought maybe it hurt because of how much further and further away you feel - like you hopped off a train I've stayed on for 16 years longer, and counting.

It's not even so much about all the moments you didn't get to be a part of.

It's the fact that I was still a stupid kid. The me you knew was a kid.

I had superficial interests and wasted my time on stupid things. We didn't get to have real or adult conversations. I didn't get to ask you all the million things I'd want your thoughts on now - politics, your childhood, technology, entertainment, my dog, me. I don't know what your favorite color was because I never paid attention. Same with your favorite food. I never got your reaction to my first car. I never got to show you how to FaceTime or see how happy it would make you to keep in touch with your family so easily. I didn't care enough then to learn everything I wish you'd gotten to teach me because you're the smartest person I've ever known. You didn't get to be part of shaping me past the age of 15, and I'm worse off for it.

You were so much more than just the dad I saw through the lens of a clueless, self-centered teenager, and that person is just gone and completely inaccessible now. I don't get to know you any other way.