As fucked up and traumatized and emotionally unavailable as my father was… he fuckin tried. He tried so goddamn hard. Went to PARENTING CLASSES on HIS OWN. Taught himself HOW TO READ so he could read me bedtime stories. He taught me how to be independent. How to stand up for myself. How to fight back. He taught me how to not need men like him.
My dad broke down in fucking tears once because he wasn’t doing (in his estimation) a good enough job of braiding my hair before school
This fucking guy got dumped by my mom in the middle of the night. She just fucking ditched both of us. He became an alcoholic from the pain, can’t blame him. But then he saw the way it was hurting me. And he pulled his shit together. HIMSELF. No rehab. No AA. Stupid motherfucker went cold turkey at home alone except for me and I held his hands while he begged god for mercy through his DTs.
Dad would fuckin play Mockingbird for me because he was so bad with words and needed me to know how he felt.
My dad taught himself how to read at the age of like 45 so that he could read me Harry Potter as a bedtime story after my mom left and it still makes me emotional. Like he cared that much.
And also. You can tell when someone is either proud or ashamed to be a girl dad. And my dad was so fucking proud. He had trouble saying it, he’s maybe only said it once or twice to my face, but I can tell he’s so proud of me
After I came out to him as bisexual, I brought him a pride flag that I had gotten at a parade… it’s still, to this day almost a decade later, hanging on his dining room wall.

























