It seems that everyone has a person. Yeah, like from Grey's Anatomy. Your person is more or less, the person you tell everything to, trust the most, and would have written down as the first person to get in touch with on your emergency contact form. Your person is the most important human being in your life. I'm lucky to say that I've had mine for the full twenty-two years that I've been alive. My person is my father.
For me, my dad has always been my rock. To say I've always been a daddy's girl would be accurate. Not only do I trust him with everything and consider him my best friend, he and I are incredibly similar. Sure, plenty of people are similar to one of their parents but for me, until a year or two ago, I had never even noticed a similarity between my mother and myself. Right down to physical appearance, it's like my dad and I are the same person. It's always been my dad and me, ever since he took time away from work to play the role of stay-at-home dad when I was five. I guess that was when we really started to bond with each other.
We would spend time together all the time. My mom wasn't around as much because she was sick, and when she wasn't sick, she worked in downtown Atlanta. Considering the fact that we lived in a suburb outside of Atlanta and that her commute to and from work would total three hours a day, I didn't see her very much at all. I love her regardless, but because my dad was around more, I've always been closer to him than my mom.
He would take me to the swimming pool in our neighborhood during the summer, teaching me to listen to Tom Jones in the process. My mom didn't find it very cute that I was singing along to songs like that, considering some of his songs are a bit inappropriate for a five year old, but it was something my dad and I enjoyed. When he drove me to school, my dad had me listening to "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" by Shania Twain. Basically, he taught me how to listen to the music he liked, and these songs are still close to my heart.
As I got older, I became even more like my dad. We would make the same jokes, and keep inside jokes between the two of us going constantly. We would bond over politics and make jokes about specific politicians. It became clear very quickly that I was just like my dad.
We would have little daddy-daughter dates all the time, going to The Varsity when we still lived in Atlanta, Waffle House around the time my mom passed away, and now our place is a local restaurant that we try to meet at for lunch whenever we're both available.
All of that is just the things we do though, they aren't really why my dad is my person. He's my person because he's always been there for me. He left work just shy of being there twenty years to take care of me because my mom couldn't. He took time to spend with me when grieving the death of my mother. He's been on my side every time a boy made me cry or someone was mean to me. He listens to me whine and rant and complain about everything that gets on my nerves when I've just had enough stupidity around me. The most important thing he did for me though, is the way he raised me to be a good Christian, to be polite, to care about my education, to volunteer, to be a hard worker, and to be a productive member of society. My dad is my person because he helped shape me into the person I am, and the person I love.
