Longest Week of My Life

This week has been the longest year of my life. Yes, you read that correctly.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 5:25 PM, I lost my father. He was my best friend, my mentor, my confidant, and my pops. He meant a lot to me. As I type this, many, many, many memories are flooding back. My dad never minced words. He was very straight forward and did not believe beating around the bush. He had some quirky sayings. He always had sound advice. He was always good at seeing other points of view. He was loyal. He was passionate. He wasn't Mr. Popular...but the friends he had were lifers and would do anything in the world for him!

I have tried my entire adult life to be just like him, or so I thought. I admired him so much that I wanted to be just like him. For the last few years, I have been lost...trying to find my way. I tried to find my way alone. I would occasionally call for some advice, but for the most part, I tried to use what he had taught me. I seemed to get further away from the true me. One of the phrases he often said to me was that you cannot please everyone all the time. I was working hard to try to prove him wrong. As I was working to this, I really lost who I was. I became complacent and unhappy. But as I've come to learn, he was 100% right. Over the past few months, I had been trying to get back to what he taught me. We recently had a conversation regarding my daughter. My daughter is everything thing I used to be, vibrant, full of life, not taking shit from anyone...very independent and strong willed. I even commented to him I wish I could be more like her. He said "I don't know what happened. I taught you everything I taught her. It just took better with her." Honestly, that was when it hit me I was just being stubborn and trying to prove him wrong...even in my adult life (I thought I was done with that in my early twenties).

Over the past several months, with the help of a therapist (which he always said he hated, but when I would tell him what mine said, he said he thinks he would like her...) I am starting to take back my life...with my own personality. I had to make a significant decision in my life right around the holidays. The complacent, people pleasing me wouldn't have thought twice and just moved forward.  However, the daughter that my father raised did not deserve the treatment she was getting. I made some decisions that were difficult and painful. He knew how much difficulty I was having...and how much I was hurting. He texted me (YES, my father had a flip phone but texted often). I have the conversation still in my phone. Let me transcribe:

Dad: Can we do anything?

Me: Assure me it was the right thing to do.

Dad: You know it was!

Me: I'll be ok. Doing it wasn't that hard...just now the alone time that allows me to second gueses my decision...that's the bitch.

Dad: Don't over think it.

Me: But you know....that's what I do best!!!!

Dad: I know...that is why I told you not to.

^ my father knows me best...he knew what I was doing...

That was my last text conversation with him.