I used to think I knew my parents pretty well, but the older I’ve gotten, I’ve realized you can’t really completely know anybody more than what they want you to know. If that makes sense? With my dad at least, he can have his moments of wow what an asshole (and I can too). But I also know that no matter what, even if he’s pissed off about something, he can take a breather, set the anger aside and try to do whatever he can to help out if I need him to be there for me. He’s always been like that and it really means a lot to me. Definitely more than all the things he could have and probably should have done differently at various points.

I know he is also kind of blinded by how he sees me as “his daughter,” and he doesn’t always seem to give my opinion the same level of respect he does my brother or even my husband. Like sometimes if he has a question about something, he’ll automatically default to my husband even if my husband doesn’t know anything about what he’s asking. Or like if we disagree about something political he just kind of tunes out what I’m saying or gets really defensive if I disagree with him. But then my brother can tell him the exact same thing and he just kind of takes it in as new information or a different opinion to consider. I know it would probably hurt his feelings (and just lead to another argument) if I pointed that out, so I usually just don’t. I just kind of joke about it with other people, and roll my eyes when it happens, but that also means that implicitly he doesn’t really know me as well as he might believe he does.