Refreshed--and some other thoughts

I went away for a week and feel refreshed. It sucks to feel like a prisoner in your own home. The last month in Portland has been unbearable for a few reasons:

1) My family is sort of boring and they aren't into doing anything but being at home. I am not that kind of person.
2) I have spent a good amount of my own money helping them out with unexpected bills. Having Mom unemployed for almost 6 months was really tough on us financially and emotionally.
3) I desperately miss my friends from Nampa, a few in particular. And I didn't realize how much I needed them until I left.
4) Those same friends are currently spread across the world and unreachable by phone. I sustain merely on emails and blog entries.
5) My best friend from here is gone for the summer.
6) I have been wrestling with feelings for a boy and afraid to say anything to him about it.

But the biggest thing on my mind has been my Dad. I find myself going over memories, both good and bad, that I have of him throughout my childhood. I think it appropriate today to just share the best memory I have of him when I was a child:

It was a long-standing tradition with my Dad to get me flowers for my birthday. Every year, without fail. He would always get me roses, and the amount would always correspond with my new age (for those who don't understand, I got a dozen roses when I turned 12). When I was in elementary school, my dad would make a special trip to see me at school and deliver my roses to me in person.

And for one day a year, I felt like the LUCKIEST GIRL in the world.
For once, I could feel the love my Daddy had for me.

He eventually stopped doing that. He wouldn't bring them to school anymore, but he would have them waiting for me when I got home from school. He continued this until I turned 16, and then it was just not worth it.

My parents separated when I turned 16. And from that point on, he quit trying to be in my life. And I really wasn't sad about it. Life got better from then on.

The problem is that I KNOW my Dad loves me. But he is incapable of showing it in healthy and constructive ways. And I am sick of being the one who is hurt in the process. At some point, it becomes a matter of self-preservation.

I just miss those few-and-far between moments where he made me feel special and loved. He hasn't been like that for a long time.

And I guess at the heart of it, I wish I had a Daddy with his head on straight.