Father’s Day… bah humbug

March 3, 2000: The day that made me forever feel sad, lonely, and, I have to admit, a bit resentful on every single Father’s Day that has come and gone since.

I foolishly hoped that moving to Korea, where they don’t celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, (they have Parents’ Day in May) I could escape those feelings this year, but, of course, this is the era of social media, which means I’m never truly all that far from home. So, even though it’s still Saturday night on the other side of the Pacific, my Facebook news feed is already filled with people thanking their fathers and/or husbands for being great dads, and people changing their profile pics to ones with their dad. I don’t have any digital pics of me with mine, unfortunately, so I can’t even do that. 😦 So, here I am, yet again, feeling resentful toward every girl out there who still has their daddy, and missing mine even more than I do on a daily basis. And, instead of having Korea be a safe haven where I can escape displays of a happiness that I can’t feel on this day anymore, being here has actually compounded the loneliness I feel every Father’s Day, because I’m all by myself while my family is together for our annual golf tournament. Last year at this time I was being “serenaded” my nephew D and my cousin O, with a chorus of “Trea to Korea, Trea to Korea…” Granted, they were doing it to be brats cuz they were hassling my oldest brother and I hassled them back on his behalf, but damn, what I wouldn’t give to hear that sassy little refrain right about now.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret being here in Korea. I love it here. It’s a beautiful country with lots of things to do and see, and I’ve met some wonderful people that have made being in a country whose language I don’t speak much less lonely, and often quite the opposite. The decision I made a little over a year ago to uproot my comfortable little living situation and move to the other side of the globe was one of my better ones. But life is what it is, so that means sometimes it’s awesome being here, and other times it’s hard. Today, I’m just having one of those moments where it’s kind of hard.

I miss my Dad. After 14 years, I still think about him every single day of my life, and I still feel an empty space in my heart that used to belong to him. I miss his voice mail messages saying “Trea, it’s your favourite father. Call me so I know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.” I miss his chicken noodle soup whenever I’ve got a cold (and I think I’m coming down with one now, dammit). It was just the Lipton’s dry packets, but he knew exactly how much of the flavour cube to put in to make it taste just right (cuz the full thing was way too much) , and the exact time to take it off the stove so the noodles were the perfect level of doneness. I miss him playing guitar and singing. I miss his twisted sense of humour and his willingness to be silly once in a while, just for the sake of amusing me (and himself). I miss debating and arguing with him (cuz we almost never agreed on anything), and sometimes I even miss fighting with him. At least, when we were fighting, he was still alive, you know? Bottom line is, I miss him like crazy and I hate the month of June because first we have Father’s Day, and then there’s his birthday on June 25th. It’s a double-whammy month for me, and being away from home hasn’t really done much to take the edge off of it. 😦

Anyway, this is just me being all emo… A girl’s gotta play to her strengths after all. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and dads-to-be out there! And to all the girls who are lucky enough to still have their dads in their lives… cherish that fact, because one day you won’t, and you may find yourself missing him so much that even the things about him that currently make you want to throttle him don’t seem so bad after all.

I think I’ll make myself kinda scarce on Facebook for the next 24 hours, listen to a whole bunch of K-pop and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist…  Catch you on the flip side…