Birthday cake

On my phone is photographic proof my picture-prone sister

On my phone is photographic poof my picture-taking-prone sisterOn my phone is photographic poof my picture-taking-prone sister

Wanted for our father's birthday cake while he was away on business.

It's weird how no one wants to write their ages on their cakes.

I wonder when it happens.

When they stop celebrating with the giant numbers printed out or in wax form

"10s" and "1s" and the lot.

When does one go from wanting it known to feeling like it creeps on you?

My father seems so well put together sometimes

In his little human skin suit that it's

Only the cracks, at times

That remind me he is human.

He is critical.

He is a leader or whatever.

He is husband and father, hardworking son to some no longer alive people and every

Thing he does,

He does with the desire to be the best.

Or as good as he can.

He knows so much about

Politics and

Law and

Our culture.

He expects everyone to act at least a little like him

But don't we all?

I don't tend to see him fall apart.

In the angry way, of course but never the sad way.

Man or not, he doesn't feel comfortable doing so.

He'd rather lock himself in his room with bread and water by his side when he feels extra upset,

Some little grievance

Or

Take it out on someone else.

The man isn't perfect.

And I don't think I fully realised

Till recently enough that his own version of perfect,

The one he always tries to make us follow

Is flawed.

And that he really is trying his best to adjust it...

Slowly, though.

The hurt he's done and will do still remains but

Slowly.

Slowly.

The past is hard to think about.

I drank from the River Lethe, yet the few sticklers left in my empty head are the worst ones

And he's aced some villain roles, I suppose.

But he's so... Old now?

He's survived so much?

Gone through so much psychological shit he likely won't ever see as "that bad" or

Tell me.

Like me, he cares sort of a lot about how people view him.

Not enough that it utterly swallows up his life

But enough to make too many choices based on the eyes...

Those eyes.

I wonder if life gets better or worse as you get older?

I'm about his age divided by three so maybe I'm not one to talk

And he will probably always see me as a small child with very little to say

But I think it's a mix of both.

It will always be a mix of both.

And that sort of terrifies me.

I spent my entire childhood searching for happiness,

Safety

And the perfect formula for the perfect little girl.

Throwing that all away takes time.

Learning to rock with the boat as wave becomes ocean and ocean becomes wave again is

Kind of a lot.

But here we both are.

Hardly similar.

Ebbing, flowing, clashing, isolating.

Three times and three divided each other's ages.

Still alive.