things i learned from my father...

today my dad turns 47 years old and i think it is remarkable that 27 of those 47 years have been spent raising me and teaching me how to live my life...that means he only had 20 years of life experience before he started teaching me how to live, in spite of that i realize that he has instilled values that i live by on a daily basis.

1. "it doesn't matter if she is right or wrong; she's still your mother."--- i like the sound of this much more now than i did then, but now i also acknowledge the intrinsic value of security i felt as a child when hearing this. i knew that regardless of whether my father agreed with my mother or not he was always going to support her; they were a team and he loved her first. no matter how hard i tried sometimes to get him to change sides, he always remained devoted to her...

2. "wear the uniform of the team you're own." as an athlete, sports analogies were a constant in my home. this new take on the expression about ducks and walking and quacking has stayed with me throughout the years.

3. "adults make mistakes everyday." back in my days of holierthanthou thinking, long before i had my own massive fall from grace, my father taught me that we cannot control people. but more importantly he showed me the first signs of how impossibly difficult it is to be a parent...sometimes, even though he must have wanted to come in and rescue us from our own choices, my father had to sit back and watch us hurt ourselves or be hurt by others.

4. "it's your head; you're the one that has to walk around with it." my parents were pretty open to us doing crazy things with our hair. i think this technique kept us from doing a lot of things out of rebellion....it also made me stop and think about things before i did them....my dad has his share of tattoos and has had his share of haircuts and ear piercings so he was always quick to tell us as well that whatever we did was going to reflect who we were and not to be mad at others if they judge us because how we look...see number 2.

5. i also learned from my father that it is a bad idea to fuss with a sense of humor. many times my brothers and i had a difficult time keeping a straight face while my father corrected our behavior. our laughter usually led us to more trouble...

6. i learned from my father that no one will ever be a bigger fan of mine than him. i sat the bench on a college soccer team for 4 years, yet my father still made the 3 hour drive to watch my team play. he has always been my biggest support system...even if that means that he had to make it to warm ups to make sure he saw me on the field.

7. one of my greatest fears has always been disappointing him. thankfully, whenever i have disappointed him, he reassures me and loves me anyway.

8. i desperately want my children to know my father like i know him.

9. i learned how to work from my father. he always said, "if you're going to do it half-way you might as well not do it at all." i am still not sure i agree with this statement because a job half done is at least half done, but i understand what it reflects about my father. he is meticulous in his work and he loves to work.

10. nothing is more important than family.