Thanks, Dad!

Father's Day may be over, but I want to give a shout-out to my dad today. I am convinced I have the best, most awesome, most exceptional dad out there. The hundreds of Facebook statuses claiming the same thing on Father's Day were misguided, clearly.

Saturday morning I was greeted with a fresh cup of coffee and a bagel (my favorite breakfast combo, I love carbs), followed by an hour's worth of friendly chit chat with my dad. Of course, he had been up for hours--he's one of those folks who considers 9am way too late to be still sleeping-- and had already fertilized the lawn, put in new trim in his bathroom, and finished grouting the new tile.

A few hours later, after feeling as though I had just come in from flogging a dead horse and then repeatedly bashing my head into a cement wall (I was job hunting and filling out applications), I heaved a deep sigh and slumped down on the couch. He sat with me for about two hours listening to me gripe about being bored to the point of wishing there was paint I could watch as it dried as that sounded thrilling in comparison to my day, and I went on about the frustrating (understatement of the century) job market.  By the end of the conversation, he had shared stories of his own about finding work in the first few years of my parents' marriage.

My dad, though, knows me enough to know that when I'm in full-on gripe mode (which, in all honesty, is pretty rare for me, I think), advice is generally the last thing I will listen to. All I want to do is vent. And I can be good at it. So he just let me go. As soon as I was done, after a few tears had been shed and it was all I could do to hold back the sniffles, he promptly stood up, started a pot of coffee (my ultimate weakness), and brought me a cookie he made the other day. We then talked for another couple of hours about absolutely anything, just something to keep my mind off of the job hunt. We even compared the nearly matching scars on our shins--we call them battle wounds-- from various reckless childhood days.

When it was all said and done, we had a couple laughs and I was feeling much better...I even laughed when he made fun of how blue my eyes looked because the "red puffiness really brings out the blue" when I cry. Funny, Dad. Reeeal funny.

Eh, I know I'll find a job, and it will be one I love. I know it takes time, and I know it's probably going to be frustrating for a little while, but sometimes, a good vent and a good cry is really all you need to get back at it again. So, thanks, Dad, for truly being the best around <3