Daddy lessons

Overlooking the cherry blossom tree in full bloom from my windowsill, I sighed. This was the life I obsessed over as a teenager. I made money writing and strategizing for brands, married someone who I think is really cool, and became a mother. I'd spent twenty years chasing the next version of myself, assuming every milestone I reached would bring me closer to the point of arrival.

I thought I knew exactly what success and happiness in adult life would look like. I'd written it all down when I was fifteen years old. Inspired by films, books, pop culture and adults I admired, I made a checklist of what a good life entails. This old apothecary's house we had recently bought was a work in progress, but its potential promised to be the cherry on top.

The moments in between

Yet here I was, just as restless as I was in high school. What did I miss about living the dreamiest life? I was still looking at my view from the window, where sheep rested underneath the cherry blossom beside the creek.

Every box on the list of my younger self was checked, the job, the marriage, the kids, the house. Somehow I still felt like an imposter in my own life. Somewhere along the way, I'd just started chasing the next thing and kept adding new to do’s and to haves to the list. Not once had I felt like I'd arrived. Not writing the things I'd desperately dreamed of writing. Not becoming a mother, which was my whole reason for being. Not marrying him, or buying this house with its idyllic scenery.

There was always something missing. A professional milestone still ahead of me. A room not quite finished. A version of myself that still needed improving. I don't know who needs to hear this, but there is no finish line, no completion, other than death itself. As long as we're alive, we keep evolving: creatively, romantically, intellectually, personally. Forever almost there, because it’s never about the finish, but about all those moments in between.

Forever a daddy’s girl

I understood that idea intellectually long before I understood it any other way. It took my dad dying to make it real.

His wild lifestyle had caught up with him, and he ended up in the hospital. In my conversations with him, I often talked about my worries, professional aspirations or how I was flunking as a mother.

In our last conversation he asked me, "Are you okay?"

I'm not, I sighed.

I know, he said unable to cheer me up like he always would. He was literally at the end of his rope.

Two days later, he passed.

Losing him gave me the raw understanding of who he was to me, my biggest cheerleader who’d always made me believe I could handle anything. In a note on grief I wrote:

…maybe this counts as his last fatherly advice; going through it all makes it worthwhile in the end. Endure the pain, trauma, and fear, because at the end of it, the carvings in your heart hold and channel love and gratitude for all that has been. Even if there were only a few good times. Even the smallest glimpses of love and fun feel grand at the finish line. Because through it all, you loved, you laughed, you danced and that never feels small or meaningless to anyone.

He was a heartache, honestly. But he also brought real joy into every room he entered, even in his most troubled moments. I had always frowned at his choices. His death, ironically, made me accept them. In life he could still have changed things, but his death meant the point of no return. All that was left was everything he'd ever been, and in the pieces, I found appreciation for what that was. My perspective shifted: his life was as worthy as anyone's even if he achieved very little in society’s eyes. In his absence, I felt how much his presence had meant to me all along. His flaws became water under the bridge. What stayed was the feeling of being around him.

That feeling is what I couldn't stop thinking about afterward. Not his job or permanent lack there of, not what he'd achieved or failed to achieve, just the feeling of being around him.

This taught me that it was never about the milestones, the achievements or my scorecards, but the people who were alongside me.

A cliche untill it becomes real

This insight grew from a cliche to a pivot in my reality.

I switched careers to stress less and live more. No cool promotions, but a lot of laughter, dancing, and cuddles on a daily basis. My kind, silly, sensitive personality feels like a gift now, instead of something to hide to be taken seriously. On the days I'm off, I'm fully present with my kids, with energy left over to actually be their mother after the workday ends. That's worth more than any title ever was.

My dad's death didn't teach me to chase harder. It taught me to pause and play, with the people I care for, instead of chasing a finish line that was never going to arrive.

Sometimes I still catch myself at that windowsill, looking out at the cherry blossom and the sheep resting beneath it, the same view, the same unfinished house, haha. But I'm not waiting for it to become the cherry on top anymore. It already is one when I’m picking my kids’ spilled cherries of the floor.

Love always,