85

my father would've been 85 years old today. if you've been around for a while, then you know that his birthday tends to be a rough day for me. hell, this stretch of february through mid-march does a number on me every year, what with all of the death anniversaries and birthdays and accompanying feels. my therapist actually brought it up a couple of sessions ago, and i realized that i'd been so busy and so focused on getting through january (seriously, january was like the longest month ever for a lot of us, right?) that i hadn't even turned my attention to february and march.

but here we are. daddy would've been 85 today. the last time i saw him alive was on this date 21 years ago. holy shit. does that count as a lifetime ago? sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago, and there are other moments where the pain still feels as fresh as i did when i got the call that he was dead.

i try not to dwell on how my life would be different if he was still alive. instead, i wonder if he'd be proud of me. if he'd support the decisions i've made along the way, even if he didn't understand them. i like to think he would. that he'd realize that he gave me the tools to navigate through life and how to adjust when things didn't go quite according to plan.

i hope he knows that. if heaven exists, i hope he knows that he did the best he could and that i'm doing the best i can.

i wish this for all of you, really. that the people you care about - family, parents, friends, role models - know that you are doing the best you can with what you have. and if you don't feel like you're doing the best you can, that's ok, too. doing the work is hard work sometimes, but we keep trying. that's the victory in it, i think: that we keep trying.