17 + 17 = 34

Today officially marks halfway in my lifetime that I have been fatherless. 17 years ago today my mom and I drove up that driveway at the house at Blackstrap Lake and saw my aunt standing at the top of the hill ~ and I knew something was wrong, really really really wrong, before she even said a word. I don't really remember much after that - some crying, the offer of a drink. And deciding to go back to school a couple of days afterwards to get some sense of normalcy back into my life. And handing in my poetry dossier for my creative writing class final and getting a C-grade, and being told that perhaps I should try writing about more than one subject. For some reason that still fucking bugs me.

There's lots of things that would be different if I had a dad. I would probably know more about fixing things. I would probably relate differently to men. I would probably have not moved out when I was 17. I would probably have not stupidly moved to Vancouver when I was 18 and done a lot of drugs. I'm sure I would be a different person, but the same could be said about going to high school in Egypt. I'm sure I would be living a different life had I stayed all my formative years in a non-Muslim country. But you can't get trapped in the what-ifs, I can only say that I've turned out mostly ok, and that I understand the reasons why. It must have been so hard to be that lonely, and in that much pain. And so the Softer World entry from a couple of weeks ago really sums it up, I think. And from this day on I will go forward having spent more of my life without a dad than with one. So cheers, dad, if you're somehow listening. It's ok.