Last wednesday marked two years since my dad died. The shock of the event has faded some. The slide show of images that make up the night it happened is no longer overbearing. I can ignore it for most of the day. I'm no longer hit by how the world is wrong because my dad is no longer in it, I've recovered from the feeling that my life isn't how it was supposed to be. Instead I'm dealing with knowing that my life and the world are just plain worse now. My dad is gone, he won't smile and laugh at his own jokes, or walk the dog every morning. He won't be there when I need him. I used to lean on him a lot, just put my forearm on his shoulder casually. He rarely complained, though he probably wanted to. I didn't show as much affection for him as I should of, caught up in stupid toxic masculine bullshit, but I still leaned on him and put my head on his shoulder to cry. I can't do that anymore. My dad used to be my rock and now he's just a box of ashes under a rock. I want someone in my life who I can trust and lean on like I did my dad, but I don't think I'm even capable of trusting like that without the built in openess of growing up being cared for by someone. I don't trust or open up easilly, and I'm bad at being selfish enough for my own good. I don't know how to just take comfort from someone like that anymore. I feel like I owe more care to the people I'm closest to then I owe them. It's bullshit and wrong of course but I still act that way.

Bruce Springsteen when talking about his father once said "Now those whose love we wanted but didn't get, we emulate them. That's the only way we have, in our power, to get the closeness and love that we needed and desired." I wonder if that's what I'm doing. I have this memory of him as some perfect supporting figure that's gone, so I try to be that, ignoring the fact that I am not capable of being as good as my dad and that that picture isn't anything close to acurate. If I am trying to be this unsuported source of care for everyone I will fall apart soon and fuck over my future.

I don't even know how to think about my future. I sort of technicly just finished my freshmen year of college, and I have jack shit to show for it. I remember talking to my dad once about feeling like I was wasting my highschool years because they didn't feel like glory days. He told me that all of his college years were better then the best of his high school years and that it ain't no sin to be glad your alive. Now I've failed to live up with that. I'm supposed to be living life to the fullest and planning for my big bright future, but I can't really manage that. I'm just sitting around helpless with grief for my dad and the other tiny bits of inperfection in my life. My dad was supposed to be around for my future. He was supposed to tell me that I was doing ok. I was supposed to call him to ask how to change a tire in the middle of the night. I was supposed to ask him what he thought of springsteen on broadway. I was supposed to have the chance to bring someone home for him to meet. I was supposed to talk to him about the classes I was struggling with, and the jobs I was gonna try to get. He helped me make a resume a week before he died. He was supposed to be around to help me revise it for a dozen more job applications. There's just a gaping hole in my future where he was supposed to be and as the shock of the removal fades I'm just hit more and more by how large it is, and I'm begining to think about some future where I see that whole as the way it is and am just ok with that and I just can't stand that at all. I need to always know that my dad being gone is a terrible wound that cannot and will not fade with any time because I need my dad and I always will.