Me and My Dad: Learning to Appreciate Our Similarities

Recently, I was reading an article about written by a guy who wants his kids to know 25 key things about life and his love for them.  It also featured a few videos of awesome dads - some have built roller coasters for their kids in their backyard, and some dress up as Spiderman to go trampolining with their son in public.  After a few laughs and some tugs at the heartstrings, I reminded myself about how lucky I am to have my dad and how he's given me way more than just 25 things to remember about life through his everyday folksy Taiwanese parent advice.

Not sure my Dad would have done this when I was 5, but then again, he likely doesn't know who Spiderman is.

It has been a while since I've blogged about him.  In fact, it was about 5 months ago in which I wrote a blog about my shortcomings as a son and how I was looking forward to traveling with him in Tibet this past April - you can read it here.  Now that I finally have my life back to normal after several months of traveling, I had better put some thoughts down on "paper" about our always growing relationship.

On the Tibetan Plains.  With our shades.  Rockin' it.

Compared to six months ago when I landed in Taiwan, I've been able to check my attitude and speaking tone with him better than before.  Still, there are a few slip ups where I let out an outburst, usually it is after one of his moments of advice where I feel like I am still a 8 year old child in his eyes.  My mom once told me that his parental nagging will never change - "your parent will always treat you as if you were still their baby and that their love for you can never change in that respect" - and then she bluntly told me, "You're just going to have to live with it."

Well, ain't that the truth.  As much as I see it as an annoyance at times, I was completely blinded to the fact that these little tidbits of wisdom he's been trying to pass down shouldn't serve to irritate me but to show me how there's someone out there who loves me so much that they would take the time to pass on advice that he would never share with someone else (I believe one of his commandments is to never trust restaurant chopsticks and bring your own disposable ones.  He's pretty OCD about germs and dirt.)  And if anything, it provides constant entertainment for me as I learn more and more each day about how his mind operates, that we're not so different in personality and that I have so much left to learn from him.

My dad and I are alike in many ways.  A couple of years ago, on a trip from Ottawa to Guelph, my brother pointed that out to me and I spent about two hours of that car ride trying to convince him how I wasn't but failed to convince anyone.  Here's a rundown of how similar we are:

- My father and I are both the first borns in our family, which has resulted in an ability to be somewhat dictatorial and critical over how our siblings should behave.  However, he has mastered this and his siblings very rarely question his authority.  My brother, on the other hand, disposed my rule long ago and sometimes treats my advice as how I treat my dad's (oh, karma.)

- My father and I are pretty OCD when it comes to cleaning and organizing.  I realized this when I organized my table before I left for my European adventure only to come back to see that he organized it in a completely different way.  He's also a great suitcase packer, I mean, I'm pretty good, but he's Olympics level good.

- My father and I are hopelessly impatient.  We both walk at a pace that's twice as fast as regular people and always want to be the first in line (I noticed this as we were always the first to hop off our tour bus to get the best photos when we were in Tibet.  And yet, he somehow always gets his way where as I've been slapped on my hand several times for my anxiety.

First off the bus = first to get this picture of the Tibetan mountain ranges.  #Winning.

I'm happy to say we've been able to find things that we can bond over - our love for photography, drinking beer and weird news articles.  His high praise for some of my photography made me feel really good, as it's been a while since I've received a compliment from someone I truly care about.

Over the past six months, I've had the chance to appreciate the time I've spent with my dad and to learn what an great man he is.  I'm sad it has taken me so long (almost 18 years since my mom and dad divorced) to realize this fact, but the truth is that there are dads out there that would have given up on his children after a divorce and start a new family elsewhere.  After all of the shitty things I've done and said over the past 18 years, this is a man who's been able to let all of that slide.  He's picked himself up off the ground from every emotional punch I've thrown at him and refused to hit back.

My dad never gave up on my brother and me, even with the huge number of barriers that some threw up in his way to connect with his children, he never let us go.  This is why to him, we'll always be children - it's the memory he's held onto to get to this point.

A rare photo from our time in Taiwan.  This, as my mom says, is how I will always look in his eyes.

So with this post, I am saying with a blog that I've never been able to say in person, which is to say that I love my dad.  With 18 years of catching up left to do, I'm happy that at 28 and with him at (almost) 57, we will have our remaining years to try to fill in that missing time - it's something I'm looking forward to.