Tag Archives: dad

A Letter to my Dad on his Birthday

9 Mar

Sorry my blog has been so quiet as of late. It’s been a stressful few weeks and also I just got back from a week long trip in Peru!  It was so fun.  Stay tuned for some adventure stories but for now, I have someone important to write about.  My dad.  Today is my dad’s birthday, AKA the second best day of the year (the first best obviously being my birthday which, in case you were wondering when to send gifts, is on July 19th), and so I figured I would write him a letter.  So, here goes.

Dear Daaaaad,

First thing first: happy, happy, happy birthday.  Since you are not having a big birthday party this year and I therefore don’t get the chance to bail you out of a botched speech with my own impromptu genius, I figured the next best thing would be to write you a letter.  You, Dad, are one of my favorite people in the world.  I’m sure there were times growing up when I was mad at you or when we got in fights or maybe when, in the heat of the moment, I told you that I hated you, something which all children do at some point I think, but sitting here at my computer right now I cannot conjure a single negative memory.  There are plenty of things that I do remember, however.  I remember us watching PeeWee together and am still sad I couldn’t get us tickets to his one man show on Broadway.  I remember us going to the car dealership to buy something moderately practical for a family of five and ending up returning home with a Mercedes convertible with only two seats.  I remember us, year after year, going shopping for mom’s presents at the last possible moment and always coming back with something awesome.  I remember watching that episode of Ren and Stimpy where there is a fire in the building and this woman is throwing all these things out of the window – an elephant, her huge baby, a walrus, herself – and laughing so hard that we cried.  I remember the countless pep talks you have given me over the years when I have had a hard time and doubted myself.  I remember sock puppet which, I believe, is still stuck in the pocket of one of your jackets, just waiting to make another appearance or brag about another trip to the Bahamas.  I remember us sneaking off in Disney World and going to eat sushi, coming up with the genius code word “the booths” so Mom and Lucy wouldn’t know where we were.  I remember your swordfish license plate.  I remember labeling all my leftovers “Dad: Do Not Eat!” so I wouldn’t come home with expectations of delicious food and find, well, nothing.  More than anything else, I just remember laughing.

I know that there are other dads in the world who are great, but I think Lucy, Aaron, Claire and I really got the best one.  There are so many people who didn’t have fathers, who didn’t or don’t have good relationships with theirs, and I really cannot imagine what that must have been like for them, what that continues to be like.  I just feel so god damn lucky.  When I think about the things that I have done and the person who I am, a person that I am proud to be, I really think that so much of the credit for all of that has to go to you and to Mom.  You guys created such a loving and supportive household, a place I am still so happy to return to.  You guys created an environment where, as long as I was trying and as long as I was kind, you would always be proud.  I know, no matter what I do in life I will always have the two of you in my corner cheering me on when things are great and cheering me up when they aren’t.

So, thank you, Dad. I know you know how much I love you, but sometimes it is just nice to have it in writing.  You are the best Dad, and one of the best people, in the entire world.  So happy birthday, Dad.  Here’s to so many more years of laughter.

Love always

Bekaaaaaah

PS  King Triton doesn’t have shit on you.

PPS  Where is that star tie I gave you for your birthday in the 2nd grade?  Best tie ever.

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Sometimes I Hyperventilate

21 May

You know when you have the smallest little bit to do of something you have been working on for the longest time ever but you just can’t seem to wrap your head around doing it so instead you sit at your computer and read the news and watch funny videos?  No?  Well, then, I just don’t know what to say to you.  Yes? Read on for a ramble!

So I have been working on my master’s degree basically forever.  Sometimes, when I am mad at myself for ever getting into this in the first place I think back to the day when I found out I got into my program.  I was convinced when I applied that there was no chance.  Then, one day, after a run I checked the mail and inside the little mailbox was a letter from The New School.  I ran upstairs, opened the letter, read that I was accepted and immediately started hyperventilating.  That’s this new thing I have been doing the last couple of years.  I seem to have grown into a person who is simply incapable of handling big batches of emotion all at once.  Case in point: a few months ago I was on a run, listening to Ira Glass on This American Life.  This particular episode (is that what a radio show is called? Is installment better? I should look this up..) was about an entire town being disappeared in the 1980s in Guatemala.  Everyone in the town was killed except for these two little boys who were found recently and one of them was reunited with his dad who had been out of town the day it was disappeared and thought his entire family was dead but in reality his youngest son was alive the whole time and living with the person who had orchestrated the whole disappearance.  Anyway, there is this whole big story with a reunion and it was really very emotional and there I was running and running and listening to it and trying not to cry but occasionally having to pull over on the side of the park to hyperventilate.  Crying and running at the same time is no bueno.  It was not my finest moment.  I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to listen to that podcast while running but, yea, that’s me.  I am good at making decisions.  Anyway, back to the original story.  When I got my acceptance I immediately started calling people:  my parents, my boyfriend at the time, other people.  And wouldn’t you know it? No one answered the phone.  So there I was, standing in my living room, jumping around and also kind of crying, all by myself.  I basically couldn’t breath and thought I might die from happy.  Now that WAS my finest moment.

So anyway, here I am all these years later, finishing up this degree that has at sometimes been empowering and sometimes been incredibly frustrating and infuriating and I want more than anything to be done with it but I just can’t seem to make myself work through the final push.  I am getting in my own way, as I love to do.  I erect these little unnecessary barriers for myself, and then I have a stress attack and an anger explosion but the anger is always directed at myself because I am fully aware that I am just making it difficult for myself for no real good reason.  I like doing that I guess.  (Again, good at decision making.) Makes it all the more exciting when I persevere.  Like, the other week I realized that I had forgotten to fill out my application for graduation.  It was available online all semester long and I just never clicked on the link.  It would have taken me 5 minutes.  So then I got all stressed and was convinced they wouldn’t let me graduate and also was embarrassed by my own idiocy so I kept putting off doing it and then when I finally did it it took like 2 minutes and was so not a big deal.  But this was like, 2 weeks of stress.  I think I got a new wrinkle from forgetting to fill out my form.

Anyway, that’s me and that is what I do.  So I am going to close all my funny videos and stop reading about the tornado in Oklahoma (so sad!) and get back to work.  And I am going to take my dad’s advice.  A few weeks ago I was on the phone with my dad and I was stressing out about all the work I had to do and my dad just said to me, “Rebekah, get whatever it is in your head that is keeping you from doing this out of your head and just do it.  You are almost there.  The only person in your way is you.”

So, get out of the way, me!  Let’s do this!

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