Sometimes I Open My Mouth And My Dad Comes Out (Or, Daddy's Girl)

Girls are supposed to grow up and become their mothers, right?

Not me. I’m becoming my dad.

I play with kids and animals the way he does. I make up my own words like he does. I find myself using nicknames for my nieces and nephews that he used to use with me. And I make silly sounds for little kids just like he still does.

I have his sense of humor, and his DGAF attitude.

My dad has a shoe collection, mostly work boots. My shoe collection is mostly running shoes.

I once compared signatures on driver’s licenses: mine, dad’s, and grandpa’s (dad’s dad). They were all very similar.

My dad has a tendency to just set things down wherever is handy. I do the same thing. I’m working on that, trying to assign a place for things and put them in that place.

My dad can walk past something 10 times without seeing it. We used to leave his presents sitting on the table, unwrapped. We’d wrap them just in time to give him his gift, and he would be surprised. No clue it had been sitting there. Yeah, I can be that way, too. I’ll walk past my keys 10 times before I see them.

He likes to work, labor, but is a klutzy. Me too. Always getting cuts, burns, scrapes, and then showing off our wounds to everyone who will listen. Still, we fix things.

He gave me my love of classic rock and appreciation for different kinds of music. He also gave me my appreciation for whiskey. Dad knows that a good whiskey is to be sipped and enjoyed, not downed fast for a quick buzz.

He gave me my love of the outdoors. Some of my fondest memories are of outings with Dad. I remember my first Dad-&-Me campout. He woke me up to start fishing and I found out later that he’d been up fishing for a couple hours already. I remember quite a few times just floating around a lake in the canoe. Sometimes we’d barely get a bite; sometimes we’d haul them in. He’d always take care of worms for me or hook me up with non-worm bait. We would make a deal that he could keep what I caught if I didn’t have to eat any of it. I hated fish back then (except for the tasteless fish and chips at restaurants and fried shrimp). We would hike. We would drive down roads that weren’t much more than deer paths. We’d get stuck and have to unstick ourselves.  I love being in nature. I am content to sit by a lake and just relax. I can fish without catching anything and call it a success. I get that from dad.

I still take after my mother quite a bit too, much more so physically. I sometimes catch myself sounding like her. My friends used to confuse us on that phone. That was entertaining. My medical history almost mirrors hers. I have her hands (but dad’s crappy finger nails), her hair, her migraines, her stubby toes, definitely her chest.

Yes, mom gave me a lot, but today is about dad.

As I get older, I find myself turning into my dad. And I am totally OK with that.