Letter from a father who learned to grow up with his daughter

Yesterday he was born and today, in a couple of hours, he will start university. Yesterday they told me that he was going to be a father, soon he was crawling and a few minutes ago he gave his first driving school class. Yesterday he looked at us like someone looking at gods and today like someone who looks at people of whom he knows each and every one of their defects, in depth. In between, only one night has passed, a night in which I have been left thinking, stunned, watching her grow…

Growing up at times, because at other times I have had to go out to work. In others, their brothers, mine, have needed me; my friends or my parents; his mother, I, I too have needed myself at times. I came home late or I couldn’t think of stories. Thus, he left the age of invented stories to begin to experience how reality can be infinitely crueler, as well as charming..

A father’s hopes

Yesterday I had a lot of hopes for her. Hopes that were all mine and about which she had said nothing. At least nothing more than pointing to the bottle when she was thirsty or filling her mouth with whatever she caught when she was hungry. Today my hopes are still mine, but the reality is that she has built hers and I have had to accept it.. It’s a process that has taken me all night.

I would have liked her to be a lawyer. Because I understand that they are people who lead a relaxed life, who are in an important position and who, due to their training, acquire a sense of justice superior to that of most mortals. However, she has wanted to be a journalist.

But not those who present the news, but those who travel and tell wars and give voice to those great stories that are also anonymous. It scares me, so much that at times it doesn’t let me sleep. While she looks at me with that face of having fallen in love with someone without barely knowing them, but with her heart. As a father, that look, her look, also makes me proud.

Give up control

As a father, it has not been easy to give up control. I have always seen her smaller than she really was, more vulnerable, impressionable and innocent.. I have also seen how many times he headed towards the precipice with all the determination in the world and I have had to allow him to do so, because As much as I would have liked to be your best teacher, there are lessons that only life teaches you or that you have to learn with others.

She is so pretty, so pretty lying down. I don’t know if she knows it, but she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I told her many times and she smiled at me, then she started to turn red and finally responded with “Dad!” (Do not embarrass me).

It is very difficult for me to understand this battle that has begun against his body, to rescue from my memory those moments in which I also cared a lot about what boys and girls my age thought. Understand that to understand many times you have to remember, because in that exercise I have also encountered nostalgia and my eyes have misted up.

The discomfort that could cause me to go to school with that horrible jacket, hand-sewn in my mother’s bored moments and that itched like hell. I don’t know which jacket I made her carry, it may even have been several.. Maybe it was those conservatory classes that I forced her to attend, until my detachment from her because of her music broke my will for her to become friends with eighth and sixteenth notes. I couldn’t get her to like it, she scratched herself in front of me and I consoled myself by thinking that it was good for her.

I’ve noticed….

Now, if I started over, I think I wouldn’t force you to do so many good things for yourself. At least from the outside, without sharing them with you. I would have liked to have noticed how you looked at the ball when you were little and played soccer with you. Having been less aware of the dangers and more of the illusions. Not having been late many times. Having agreed to play before you gave up on me and found other girls to do it with.

I would have liked to assume earlier that you were perfectly capable of keeping warm when you were cold, of eating when you were hungry. Because those were the needs you had at the beginning, but later you didn’t. After What you needed was encouragement with all the projects you started, answers with the doubts of your age, the company of someone who was not a director but support, comfort and encouragement.. Maybe it was partly the role I played, maybe it was part of being a father.

They say that emotions are magic… and that human beings can have so many that we are capable of experiencing several emotions at the same time. I feel sad because some of the time we haven’t spent together will never come back.. I suppose all parents feel the same way at some point, but that doesn’t comfort me.

What does do, however, is that now, when I see you fighting your own battles, I feel proud that you face them honestly. Whether wrong or right are those that you have decided and in which you have found passion. Watching you grow up I have understood that I wanted an easy life for you and that you want a happy life for yourself. I just hope you get it, and of course, that you share it with me.

PS: As you can see, today, apart from being a father, I have started to be a bit of a journalist and I would like to finish this article and sign it with you at lunchtime.

Photos courtesy of Soosh

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