Father-Daughter Dance (and Life) Lessons

Last week I spent a long weekend at home in Houston with the specific purpose of taking a dance lesson with my dad for our father-daughter dance for the wedding. He chose "My Girl" for our dance because it reminds him of the time we went to see Father of the Bride and were late to the showing and had to sit in the very front row for all 105 minutes of the film. I guess my parents remember it differently than I do, because apparently it was a great memory for them! So, since today is also his birthday, I thought I would tell you a little about him so you can truly appreciate how big this was for him.

My dad grew up in the Midwest, which means he likes things like Star Trek and Subway sandwiches. It also means he had an intense desire to get the hell outta there, and worked his ass off to become a successful business person. Today, he has a high-pressure job in IT and works on average 90-1,409 hours a week. 

When I was growing up, I didn't understand why he had to take work calls on a Saturday or check email on vacation. My sorely underdeveloped brain just figured he loveddddddddddd work! I mean, why wouldn't he? He got to travel to exciting places like Finland,  San Francisco, and New Jersey (I had a thing for diners when I was a kid...so what?)! He had something called an "expense account" and sounded like the boss. Pretty sweet gig, IMO. But of course, his long hours and constant high stakes work environment sometimes wore on my mom and me. He'd miss some of my high school plays (and who could blame him??) and sometimes wasn't able to make it home on weekends if work was especially chaotic. So I went through a long period of not appreciating my dad. I guess I just figured if he wanted to be more involved, he would.

But then, I went off to college--a very expensive college that my parents paid out-of-state tuition for and never made me cover a cent of, btw--and moved to D.C. and started working my own jobs. And then, something clicked one day. I started to understand what made it worth it to my dad to put up with incompetent staff, delayed flights, and shitty hotel room service. It made sense to me why he checked his Blackberry constantly and took calls in the middle of dinner. It was because he wanted to give my mom and me EVERYTHING. He never wanted to have to say "no" or "maybe next time." He was determined to give us whatever life we could have imagined. And I think this dance lesson crystalized my dad's whole being perfectly: do whatever it takes to make my family happy. Even if that means learning to dance.

My dad suffers from "White Man No-Rythmia," but he didn't let that stop him last week. He carefully studied the jitterbug steps the instructor taught him and practiced them over and over, counting out "and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8" till I told him that usually you only start the count at 5, until we finally ran out of time. He worked just as hard in those 90 minutes as he does for work (which, from my description is obviously a shit ton), just so he could be prepared for our one dance at my wedding, where he will walk me down the aisle and pass me off to be Kyle's problem. I don't tell him often enough, but I really love him and I'm proud to call him my Dad. Even if I will never understand the Subway sandwich thing.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Leave a comment with your birthday wishes for the ol' guy!!