another crappy holiday

today is my dad's death day. i totally forgot it, i didn't remember it at all until a friend of mine sent me an e-card this morning to see how i was 'holding up'.

two years, he's been dead for two years.

last session i talked to me therapist about J, and through that discussion we also ended up talking about my dad. i said that i think that already, at 32, J has accomplished what my dad never managed- he recognized his weaknesses and his mistakes and then he willingly made a change in himself and his behavior. my dad, at 59, was just starting to work on these things when he died. it makes me so sad to think that he was so close to finally figuring himself out, but he never got a chance to finish the job.

my therapist - i'll call him scott (cuz that's his name)- asked me if i felt like our relationship was resolved when he died. i said no, that we had just started down that path when he went off and drove into a ditch. that makes me even more sad. we were so close to being friends, so close to finally having a real relationship with each other, and that chance was taken from us. again. i had resolved myself to the fact that we would never have a normal father/daughter relationship, but we could have been friends. we were so close. it's not fair that we never got that.

i envy people who are close to their parents as adults. hell, i envy people who can't stand their parent's as adults. i want that. i want to know my parents as peers, as real people, to have a friendship with them. i want to argue with my mother as her equal and say 'no' to my dad as a grown-up. i want to go to dinner with them and pick up the check. i want to call them and ask them for relationship advice. i want to get tipsy with them and talk about my fears and hopes and dreams for the future.

i miss my dad. i'm not even close to recognizing his death, and i don't know when i will be. at my wedding? when my first child is born? every holiday and birthday that he's not there for?

this sucks. it just really sucks.