Conversations With My Dad

03/2025

As an 18-year-old girl away from home for the first time, I’ve come to realize that conversations with my dad are some of the best ones I have ever had. 

What have you been up to?

How’s your boyfriend?

How’s work?

Are you doing good in school?

“He’s good, work is fun, I’ve been hanging out with my friends, and my grades are as good as they can be,” I say without hesitation. Four questions I have routine answers to, but nonetheless love answering. 

Lately, I’ve been contrasting how I would run into my dad's arms after he came home from a deployment with how I now run to the phone the second I see his contact name. “It’s my dad,” I’ll say with a smile as I step out of whatever conversation I’m in. Not only do I feel the little girl in me reaching her arms up to the man in Army green smiling down at her, but I remember the angsty teenage girl I was, slamming doors and grabbing her car keys in the heat of a fight. The similarity in both versions of myself is that neither of them realize how lucky they really are.

Although “Can you play kitchen with me?” has turned into “Sorry I didn’t catch you, call me back when you're free,” I take every piece, every bit, every crumb I can. Maybe I do this because I’m subconsciously making up for the time spent looking up at red, white, and blue fireworks with just my mom instead of having a family game night. Or maybe it’s because I’m just growing up. I know if I turned back time to my sophomore year of high school and said to that 16-year-old girl, “Hey, you actually willingly call your dad every Wednesday night,” I think she’d look at me like I was crazy. (And probably curse me out in an effort to look cool). But how lucky I am to have come to such an enlightening thought process now.

If you’re a college student like me or just somebody who’s away from their parents for the first time, this sentiment is something you may relate to. You may soon realize that your parents are the ones you turn to with your best accomplishments- just like my dad is the one I can't wait to talk to about life.

You don't have to outgrow the love.

If I knew that earlier, maybe I wouldn't be tearing up thinking about the time I could've spent running into my dad's arms every time I just needed someone. But you can't change what's passed, so I’ll settle for sending a text that reads, “I saw the stars really clearly tonight; they reminded me of you.”