For My Father

"Whenever I have a problem, I go to my dad's house."

The stupidest show on television expresses how I feel. The calm
, no nonsense demeanor my father has always had with me is exactly the remedy I need to escape from my own melodrama. He sent me to school for decades with other girls, something I wanted as a little girl growing up in a house of brothers, worked hours each night to pay for everyone and everything, and never complained. I think it is part of the reason I never got seriously onvolved with anyone who was bad for me. It is the reason I am so picky about who I choose. My father and his father, loyal, honest, and chivalrous.

I look at my brothers, and know, for the most part, they are the same. I feel proud that they are good to their girlfriends, and to me and my mother. We may not always agree, but they are there if I need them. And having a large family is a bigger part of who I am than I ever really understood. A big piece of it is all the honorable men I'm fortunate enough to be related to.

I've had guys my age tell me that my father was a huge influence on them, more so than their own in some cases. I used to feel left out of this part of his life, simply because I couldn't be a Boy Scout. I think its incredible, now, that he was able to inspire pther people's sons. Sons of men who had left, who weren't the type of man to be a father. I'll watch these sad girls on television and even hear about them in my own life, friends who dated dortnags who stole from them, hurt them, used them, and just couldn't even compare and understand hpw rare that really is. The man I share initials with

I've been told I'm too hard, too mean to guys, but, looking around, I'm not sure that is a bad thing.

"Life is too short for that nonsense."

And he is right!