Tags: Personal
To continue to dish on my awkward family, I am including a follow up segment about my father.
Our relationship is always very stressed when we are together because we are so alike. We have “the gene” which refers to his side of the family where everyone is stubborn, mean, hates life, and a huge pessimist. Well, that’s what we say at least. It’s a curse. We are all also destined to lose our first loves. So far, it’s proven all true.
But the thing about my dad is that he really is an incredible person. Despite how grumpy he always seems to be when he gets home from work or how much he yells when he doesn’t even mean to, he is the most amazing person I’ve ever met.
When he was 19, he moved from the east coast to Colorado on a whim. He decided to later to go to college and paid his own way through college and grad school. He managed to graduate 3rd in his class. He used to joke that everyone was so much younger than him that to go out on weekends, he would have to grab a beer with his professors. They were the only people that were old enough to drink with him.
He applied for a job with the government, and when they never called him back he called them and asked for a reply. The guy on the phone freaked out and immediately gave him the job. He’s been worked there ever since.
From day one he and my mom have been saving for my brother and my college. There was never going to be a choice in the matter, we were going.
My dad hates his job and can’t wait to retire. All he wants to do is take pictures. He’s also an amazing photographer.
But he has been putting off retiring because I picked a school that is extremely expensive. 40k a year. But he wanted me to have the best. He pays for everything because he doesn’t want me to have to work while in school, he wants me to focus on my studies.
And now, he is spending his own retirment money on my brother’s private high school tuition. 10k a year.
So for education, my dad is spending 50k a year. Yeah, it’s that important to my family. But he has been planning for this, and going to a job he hates every day for almost 30 years so he can do this for us.
Not to mention how hard he has pushed us. Every day he asks for grade updates and making us do homework. He pushed me to tears thousands of times during my grade school years, but he gave me a work ethic because of it. Not to mention, I’m too afraid of him to get bad grades now haha
But that’s why he is awesome. Now let me go into why he can be hella awkward.
First off, like I mentioned before, he doesn’t want me or my brother to be surprised by anything. So he was the one that gave me my first lesson about drinking.
We were watching the famed college movie “Animal House” on tv and my dad used this as an opportunity to teach me. He grabbed one of the “fuffy” drinks my mom likes to drink and poured me a small cup.
“Drink it,” he said. I was surprised, but I did. He poured another cup. Then, he went over to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle I didn’t recognize. I didn’t even realize that we had a liquor cabinet. He showed me the bottle. “This is everclear.” He poured a bit into the cup. “This just increased the amount of alcohol in that drink.” he told me how much, but it was a long time ago, I don’t remember. I just remember drinking the drink, tasting no difference, but being really surprised how much alcohol was in there.
He then described to me “the college party”. The one thing I remember him telling me was: “Rule #1: You never have catching up to do.”
I don’t remember the rest of what happened that night, but I felt so close to my dad, glad that he taught me something I was probably never going to learn from someone else. He also gave me to solid advice: “If you’re going to drink, drink. If you’re going to do drugs, do drugs. Just don’t do both.”
My father also gives me the best dating advice. He gives me insight into things that my mom can’t and makes me feel better about the things I do. I complain to my mom, but I get advice from my dad.
Of course, he can be incredibly awkward too.
We were on vacation once, and we were at the Olive Garden. I wanted to go home because I was sick of being away from John. My dad made the comment “You just want to get home because you need to get serviced.” My mouth fell open and my eyes got wide. I couldn’t believe he said that. Granted, it was totally true. But STILL!
And on this same vacation, we hung out in bars a lot playing pool. To distract us, my dad would throw in some pelvic thrusts. We always missed those shots.
The man is incredible, the man is hilarious. He is a great dad. I could talk for hours about him. But I’m sure everyone’s bored of hearing about it now.
<3 love my family
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