I hope tomorrow is like today.

Maybe that isn't quite accurate.

All in all it was a moderately good day, but now I feel slightly down and in the dumps. I always hate when this feeling comes up and sits down for no reason. I had an excellent time just sitting and laying in the sun with Jessie and Kate and talking to them like I haven't in ages. I thoroughly enjoyed dinner in the CDR - which hasn't happened in ages - and let quite satisfied. But, when I get into my room and sit here and think I start to feel down for no reason at all. Or maybe I do have a reason.

It's my dad's birthday today. I guess it got me thinking about how even if I was able to call him, I wouldn't want to. I just don't think I can handle being civil to him. I try so very hard, but it's a lot for me to manage when my life feels so good and comfortable and he always has something to say that brings me down. I don't even think he means to do it anymore, he just doesn't know how to go about things any other way. It's also very hard for me to talk to him because it reminds how much I miss my daddy. No, not my dad, my daddy.

Almost every child's hero is their daddy. Every little girl is a daddy's girl and every little boy wants to be like his old man, but there comes a point when we stop feeling that way or things change and we aren't allowed to feel that way anymore. For most people it is an easy transition from late childhood into the teen years, for me, it was a sharp jolt at the tail end of childhood. I came home one day to see police leaving and my dad telling me that he was sick and things weren't going to be the same. At the time it didn't click, I didn't realize what had happened, but in retrospect I know that was the moment when my hero came plummeting to the earth.

I wish I could say things got better, but they only got worse as I got older until I was unable to look my dad in the eyes, I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him, and I refused to let my friends meet him. Then we have his most recent escapades in losing every penny we ever had saved for my brother's and my education. Now when I force myself to go visit him I can't help but feel this rock in my stomach because of the deplorable conditions he's living in. It just hurts a lot to think that we once had a nice sized house in the best neighborhood and now he lives in a crappy, not furnished, dirty little apartment above a bar that blares music late into the night. It's something you might see in those documentaries of welfare families - and for a while we were one.

With all this in mind, I miss my daddy. I miss him so much and I just want him back. I want to be 5-years-old and I want my dad to be my hero.

Happy birthday, dad.

~Evy



"Sometimes when you lose, you win." ~Robbin Williams, What Dreams May Come