Like father like daughter

Although some of you will think this is some sort of personal sob-story, that I’m about to share, I assure you it isn’t. I’ll begin at about the age in which I realized my father was not upon this iconic “pedestal”, that other parents seem to be placed on. Around the year 2000, I was about seven years old, my parents went through a divorce, my mom met someone new, and we moved to Miami, FL. Because of all these transitions, happening seemingly back to back, it was a period in which many adjustments were made. Upon moving almost four-hundred miles away from my father, I suddenly lost about 95% of the “quality time” I had shared with him the past seven years of my life. My dad was no longer just down the hallway, he was in a different city, living in the house that my parents had built together. For several years, I flew to my father once a month to visit, but that wasn’t always in my ideal interest as the older I got. When I got the age where it was “un-cool” to be spending mass amounts of time with your parents, I stopped flying to see him as frequently, and it fell down on my priority list to call him as much. Some of you may think that teenage hormones began to simply eat away at our relationship, but it was almost as if my dad was going through puberty himself. Most children would think that if they were to stop giving as much attention to their relationship with one of their parents, that their parent would smother them even more. This was not the case with my father. My father simply withdrew from the relationship as much as I had. He focused more of his time on athletics, and his job. Over the next several years, my father and I always talked on the phone, every couple of days and I visited when I could. My father, unfortunately, thought that even though we weren’t as close as other father-daughter duos, paying his monthly child support was still “supporting” me. As if money and, a real relationship were interchangeable.  They weren’t. this is when I began to realize that my father was kicked off this pedestal not because he didn’t care, but because he was unsure how to show it. (Not by paying your way into my life)

            Good news though, over the last several years my father and I have definitely improved our relationship. He’s actually pretty fun to hang around. J