Dad...

Dear Dad,

It's been awhile since we sat down and actually talked.  And I would be lying if I said that when we were sitting next to each other at Hannah's softball game talking about the errors and what we would do differently, didn't make me miss you at all.  I miss just sitting there talking about the game.  Talking about the one true thing that made us both happy. I would be lying if I said that being able to text you again and hold a casual conversation doesn't make me happy. I would be lying if I said that seeing your name on my phone again, didn't make me smile.  I would be lying if I said I didn't chain smoke an entire pack and a half the day in June we came to see you for the family reunion, too terrified to face you.  Truth is, I would be lying if I said I didn't think about you everyday we didn't talk.  Truth is, I cried for a long time after we had that blow up fight, and right after seeing you at pawpaw's birthday party.  

I know I have been a real screw up sometimes, and that you never really had any reason to be proud of me.  I know that you watched me from a little girl trying to open a Coke can with her toothless mouth, to the grown woman walking across the stage to receive my diploma.  That when you hugged me goodbye in Forest Park, you felt like you were losing a part of you.  You have no idea how much I loved sitting in that hot tub and talking to you, heart to heart while you smoked your cigars. Getting to ride home in the truck after a softball game with you, bitching about the umpires and their crooked calls.  I know that you might not have said it as much as I would have loved to hear, but that you were proud of me out there on that field. I know I haven't made the best decisions, and that we both think with our stubbornness... Rash seems to be our middle names when we get into an argument.

I know we both said things we didn't mean.  I know you don't want me out of your life anymore than I don't want a father to one day walk me down the aisle at my wedding.  I know we both did things that will take time to heal.  I also know there are things about the other that we will never understand nor accept.  But that doesn't mean I don't want to try.  You have no idea how much it meant to me when you asked me to come to Alabama with you.  The thought of getting to spend time with you in the car, just us, made me unbelievably happy.  I think this has always been a given, but even though we butt heads, I am a daddy's girl.  I cried at your wedding, knowing you were finally happy after the years that went by after the divorce that crumbled you with sadness.  I know you are only looking out for me when you try to help.  That you have been down a rough road when you were young and wanted better for me and my sister's.  I know that you pushed me so hard so I could better myself, and that all you said (though at the time seemed to me as you trying to control me) was all out of love.  I know that you are trying to make something of yourself as well.  Trying to provide for your family as best as you know how.  I understand that might be part of the union mentality, or just how you were raised.

I should have listened to you on so many things.  But we always say that we learn from our mistakes.  I now know that you were just trying to save me from those mistakes.  You were always right when it came to men.  You proved that right with Will many a time over.  I am so tired of you not being in my life.  I want nothing more than for you to walk me down the aisle one day. I want nothing more than my one day children to call you pawpaw.  I want you to be the man my one day fiance asks for my hand in marriage from. You have tried to protect me from everything this cruel world has to offer, and instead I shrugged you off as a controlling parent who didn't know what was best for me.  I don't want you out of my life any longer.  I realize that even when we do sit down, things won't be hunky dory fine the next day.  That we might never get back to that.  But I want my dad back.

I know that you won't understand if you ever find this post. But I think we all know that I am petrified when we talk/argue to the point where I don't talk.  That this is all being said in this format because I don't know how to tell you in person.  Know that I love you with everything I have.  Remember that fight that we had where I left you a note in the bathroom?  Saying "I'll still love you, if you still love me."  Your response will forever be in me.  "You are a part of me, my blood, my flesh, and I will always love you."

I'll always love you too.