"Booya Skidaddi",
Thoughts of my Dad:

When your summer days come tumbling down
And you find yourself alone
Then you can come back and be with me
Just close your eyes and I'll be there
Listen to the sound
Of this old heart beating for you
~Neil Young

I have never liked the phrase, “daddy’s little girl”, despite the extent to which it has been used to describe me in relation to my father. We are, in a nutshell, incredibly close…but our relationship is one of respect and equality, one in which I have never felt small, there is far too much love for that.

When I think of my daddy, I picture him in his office, a room which has fit in different houses over the years (most memorably, an old chicken coop), but where he can oftentimes be found sitting in the world’s oldest three wheeled desk chair amongst piles of papers.

In this moment, my mind drifts back to the February of my freshman year of high school. Spring break loomed on the horizon and ominously so, as it had been a long, cold winter full of awkward transition. On this particular evening I padded up the stairs to my dad’s office, hearing the creak of his chair as he wheeled around to face my approaching footsteps. With a glint in his eye he asked, “hey sport, what do you think about driving to Ohio?”
A week later, one unlicensed high schooler, one well intentioned dad, one beloved golden dog and one Volvo station wagon set off on an adventure to Cleveland, a quest whose completion would yield a competent automobile operator (me) and our arrival at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

You know, sometimes, I don’t know why,
But this old town just seems so hopeless
I aint really sure, but it seems I remember the good times
Were just a little bit more in focus ~Tom Petty

A few years later, when I was visiting colleges, my dad and I took several similar trips into the woods of upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and California, creating adventures littered with countless Red Roof Inns, campus tour guides (and our shotty impressions of them), Bob Evans pancake houses, Tom Petty albums, and conversations that I will forever hold in my heart.

So where am I going with all this? I don’t quite know.
I do know that I am supposed to be studying for a midterm but can’t seem to focus upon doing so until I get this down on paper.
For some time now, certain things have been hard for my dad and I…and to be quite honest, that is an understatement. For whatever reason, a beautiful gift has been wrapped up in years of hardship, devistation and extreme feelings of loss. How often have I felt my father’s inner struggle deeply within my own heart, heard him ask for the answer, wondering why the fathers of his daughter’s friends are so different, why his path seems so far from normal.
To those questions I will answer this:
We are not normal, my dad and I. In fact, we are quite out there. But by God we will choose to see our difference as a gift. My daddy, from the moment I came into this world, has been my soul mate, my life guide, my angel.
And I am his.
I could not ask for more.

I just want to thank you for all of the things you've done
I'm thinkin about you,
Just want to send my love
I send my best to you that's my messge of love
For all the things you did, I can never thank you enough
~Neil Young

As I write this, my eyes drift up from the page, falling upon the photographs that are pasted to my desk. There in one in particular in which I sit upon my dad’s shoulders. He is holding me up, keeping me balanced. I would like to think that in a way, despite being a little girl, in that moment, I was doing the same for him.

Tomorrow morning my dad will embark on a new adventure, one he takes on with some trepidation, some sadness, and some fear. Recently having done the same thing in my own life, I understand his feelings. Our paths are intertwined so that his adventure feeds into mine and mine feeds into his. I am not there to see him off, to drive into the day with him as I have in the past, or to sit with him and talk about it face to face when he comes home at night. It almost doesn’t matter though, I’ll be there with him all day just like he is here with me. It sounds so incredibly cornball, but it’s the honest truth.
And that’s all I have to say about that. Guess I'll let Mr. Seger take us home:

Well those drifters’ days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out
Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
Well, I'm older now and still runnin'
Against the wind
~Bob Seger