It's Been A While

I saw my Dad yesterday for the first time in months, and I feel like maybe we started to connect again after what has been years of a very distant, disjointed sort of relationship. He very much struggled with my teenage years, and then me having my son very young (20). He just didn't know how to relate to me during that time and now I feel like we're on an even footing and able to come to each other as adults, something has changed.

He looked so different when I saw him for the first time, I almost didn't recognise him. But different in a good way – I thought that he looked like an ageing hippy who couldn't quite bring himself to throw off every last fragment of suburbia, which is probably closer to who he is than any other look he's ever had, but he looked taller somehow, less lost in his own skin, and less like he was trying to hide or be someone else. He has stopped dying his hair, cut it short, and grown a beard. We were sitting in the car and I thought, this is just the next chapter really. It was nice. I don't know if he will ever be the kind of father I spoke about in my other recent post on fatherhood, but I am feeling more mellow. He is the dad that he was always meant to be, and I have found my way to adulthood on my own and now he is there and he sort of always was, he just didn't know how to be present all of the time.