I have been writing in a journal on an almost-daily basis since I was 17 years old. This is a record of me going through each entry from the beginning, and commenting on the me from fifteen years ago.

I don’t know why I call my dad. It’s always the same thing, conversation regarding nothing; the weather, nonsense, filled with large blank spaces. We have nothing in common and have nothing to discuss. We’re so different, but I guess that’s what I strived for, and now I know I was successful. Life doesn’t necessarily follow a certain path and even through things happen for a reason, if you follow through with your gut feeling, they usually, things that it, turn out all right. In a way, I look forward to the future, just because I have no idea what to expect. It’s one of the unexplored territories out there. I’m sure I’ll call my dad again someday, and maybe one day I’ll understand my mom more. For the time, I’ll just hang out in my own little world. I’m pretty busy trying to figure out myself right now. I’ve got a lot to work out, with little time to do it.

I believe in madness, I believe in doing what you have to, just in case the world might end tomorrow. Second chances don’t happen all to often.

This is the first entry about my dad? I had some serious issues with him, so it’s surprising. My mom and dad divorced when I was 5, and I’ll be kind and just say that my father had A LOT of problems. He did his best to stay connected with me, but what he was going through made it difficult. When we moved 4 hours away, even more so.

As I say in this surprisingly lucid entry, I designed my life with an almost dire need for it to be the opposite of the one my dad had lead. We really were living in different places. We still do, but I think I’ve come to appreciate his viewpoint more, so we can discuss things rather than me writing him off as wrong and not worth talking to.

I’d like to say that I’m completely recovered from these issues, but it’s just not the truth. I’m super scared to have kids, mostly because I fear I’m cursed to become estranged with them just as my own father did with me.