Last week was my father’s birthday. He was also scheduled to take a full week off from work. I called him to ask him what his plans were and if he wanted to spend some father-daughter time since it was rare we both coincidentally had time off. He said he would call me later in the week and we could talk about when I could come down. I waited and didn’t hear from him. Today is Monday and he’s back at work. I thought to myself: maybe he got busy or forgot to get back to me. I also thought maybe he’s still disappointed in me about my job loss and wanted to avoid spending one on one time together. I don’t know, but I can’t help feel sad about it. It’s not often we have quality time together; just him and I. I suppose we’ve never been close compared to other families, but we have come a long way and and talk all the time now. When I was still employed, my father and I talked about taking a road trip with the family and I envisioned how happy we would be.

The last vivid memory I have of us doing anything together was when he took me fishing. We spent the day in the hot sun baiting with minnows and he showed me how to cast. I caught a fish and when we were ready to go home I couldn’t find it in our bucket. My father told me it swam away; I realized years later that he had released it back in the water but lied so I wouldn’t be upset. I was about 12 years old. We’ve done many things together since of course, but something about that moment in time has always made me yearn for another one. Now that we’re both getting older, I feel a sense of urgency to get in as much father-time as I can. The last thing I want to do is disappoint him and at this juncture in my life, I feel like I’ve let him down. Inherently, our family puts much emphasis on career identity and financial wealth. I’m sure its hard for him and my mother to segregate success from these elements since they’ve been instilled with these expectations; they know I don’t have to be a rich CEO to be happy. However, pressures of our culture make it hard for them to take unemployment and failure. I know they only want my happiness and not have to worry about me, but part of my happiness is making them proud. It’s such a catch-22. I just want to be with my family and not have to get caught up in arguments over money, jobs and other things that really don’t matter. I miss just being a daughter sans everything else and I miss my father and mother sans everything else.