Father Figure

If you know me, you know that my father and I have a .... complicated relationship. If you don't know me, I'll give you the bottom line: We are exactly alike in some areas and completely different in other areas and it makes for a bumpy ride 100% of the time. Up until very recently, I went 2 years without communicating with him. We both had our reasons (we always do, otherwise that would just be silly), but he reached out and I feel like I need a Dad. I mean, I think everyone does whether they want to admit it or not. Dads are important.
To fill you in on who he is a bit... He is the smartest man I know. His IQ is off the charts. He was born in New York in the 1940s and lived there until his late 30s. He is Italian. Is almost done with his PhD. Very tall. Loud (although, I think Italian and loud are synonymous). I can thank him for giving me my impatience, stubbornness, passion, height, nose, anxiety about being places on time, low-tolerance for bullshit, giant feet, perfectionism, and inability to quietly have a heated conversation.
He is not perfect. Neither am I. Although there are parts of our story that I feel he could have handled differently, I know that I too have been a major source of grief, disappointment and flat-out losing-of-his-shit.
I knew it was time to reconnect with him. Every time I see a man of about 70, I think of him. My heart gets a pang. I wish that things were different. I want to change them, but don't know how. I miss having a dad. I need that voice of reason. I need someone who changed my diapers and bandaged my skinned knees to tell me how to figure all this shit out.
Recently reconnecting with him and thinking about our dynamic led me to reminisce about some of my favorite/funniest memories of him, which is why I'm writing this, to share with you.

The very first thing I can remember of him, is me jumping on his bed, still in diapers, in a Popples nightgown and him screaming, "GODDAMMIT, ABBY. It is 9:30 at night!" You would think this would be a sad/scary memory, but it makes me laugh out loud when I think of it.
Shortly thereafter, I remember him fast forwarding through the scene in The Neverending Story where the horse starts to sink in the quicksand, because I would immediately lose my mind and hysterically/inconsolably scream cry until it was over. I loved that movie, and to save us all the heartache, he knew exactly when to speed through and when to resume so that I could still enjoy it.

A few years later, we lived in Villa Park so I believe I was about 7 or 8, I was struggling to change the outfit of my Barbie (as I mentioned, he handed me down his zero patience for anything) and about to fall into a full-blown meltdown when he took over and tried to help me. I watched as he took the plastic limbs and attempted to bend and twist them to make her skintight minidress go on (why was I allowed to buy her all these whore clothes?), I saw the surmounting frustration in his face. Then finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "Jesus Christ, which one is this - Fat Ass Barbie?!"

My parents got divorced right before I started 3rd grade. We stayed in California a bit longer, but my mom, siblings, and I ended up moving to Kansas where my mother grew up to be closer to her family. I would visit my dad almost every summer and he would come to Kansas whenever he could to see us. On one of my summer trips to California, I think I was 12, we were driving on the freeway when a man cut us off. I yelled the first thing that came into my head: "You jerk off!". My dad pulled the car over at the next exit and had a lengthy conversation with me about what that term means and why I can't say it and how girls can't speak that way. I was embarrassed for being reprimanded and felt like I had really let him down. We re-entered the freeway. Moments later someone cut us off and my father proceeded to call them a "fuck knuckle".

In high school I decided that I wanted to live with my dad instead of my mom. I moved out here as a teenager to live with him which was probably the worst idea ever. Not because he was the worst parent (as I said, I would have handled me differently, but raising kids is HARD), but because teenage girls are literally THE WORST PEOPLE ALIVE. They hate rules, they take everything to be a personal attack on them and their life in general is the most awkward and dramatic thing going on in the world. Anyhow, I told him one day after school (junior year) how one of my instructors was pretty strict and while he explained the rules he told us to abide by them because "the rules are in place for a reason and they shouldn't be questioned." My dad nearly had a stroke when he heard this. He sat me down and explained that everything should be questioned. That what the teacher was saying was basically some Fascist bullshit and that if I felt like a rule didn't make sense, I should question it, talk about it, maybe even protest it. No one in my life had ever told me that this was okay before, that rules are sometimes made by people who don't have the best interests of everyone in mind. That it is okay to make up my own mind about things, that I SHOULD make up my own mind about things. Even though that was an exceptionally terrible time in our relationship, it was a lesson that I carry with me always.

In high school (again, teenage girl=terrible monster who can not be reasoned with), I wanted to go to some event at school or some hang out with my friends. I was in trouble for any number of reasons and was not allowed to go. I said something to the effect of "But daaaaad, it's the last one before school gets out!!!"...His response to this kind of argument was always the same (and one of my personal favorite retorts) "I don't care if it's the second coming of Christ, you're not going!".

With all of his intelligence and (what seems like) snark and attitude, he still has the ability to be a total goofball. Again, I was in high school and parents are the absolute dorkiest losers at that phase, but my dad and I were listening to "One Love" by Bob Marley and when he says "let's get together and feel alright", my dad changed the words to "Let's get together and smoke a pipe". And he pantomimed smoking out of a bong when he sang it. Maybe not the best thing to do in front of your 16 year old, but hilarious nonetheless. And also, I'm not some raging stoner who sits around all day and doesn't do anything with my life. My parents talked about drugs and joked about them and I'm still ambitious and normal....ish. (Side point.)

In an email last week, he told me that he's teaching English to any of his student's parents who want to learn. He's a teacher in New Mexico and there is a large Hispanic population there and a significant percentage of the parents do not speak English so he is trying to help them learn. Even though I have a thousand un-PC-comment memories of him, he has a heart and he believes in people and he wants to help everyone. That is something that I hope I also inherited from him through the years.

Pretty much from the time I was 17 until now, my dad and I have been on an insane roller coaster of pissing each other off, making up, and starting the cycle over again. We're both sensitive. We remind me a lot of Royal and Margot Tenembaum. I speak in absolutes of "NEVER" and "ALWAYS" and I have a tendency to swear off of people and relationships, but I hope that this time, somehow, through me being older, having married, and experienced some real-life adult shit, etc... that we will be able to appreciate each other for what we are, and maintain some sort of fondness for one another. Because I think that dads are important.