Thursday, September 11, 2008

Challenges and Successes

I found me a challenge yesterday. It's Baby Tea Leaves' Hot for the Holidays ~Unwrap Your Potential Challenge. It's not so much an individual weight loss challenge but a challenge for all who sign up for it to collectively lose 500 pounds! Yep you heard me we're going to be loosing 500 lbs before the holidays. Sounds ambitious, yes, but that's who we roll people.

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The Husband, The Little Miss and I are heading out of town once again. This time we're going to June Lake which is about a 7 hour drive from here in the Eastern Sierras. We're going to a family house which is situated across the lake on some land that my paternal grandfather had developed in the 1920's. We're going with my dad to do some maintenance around the place and enjoy some quiet time with him.

For the past 10 or so years this has been the one vacation I take with Dad every year, usually spending a long weekend waking up really early, packing lunches and going for hikes. Until my 30's I was never close to my dad and found it rather difficult to have a relationship with him. We had some really rough years in there and there were times when months would go by and we wouldn't talk although he lived 10 minutes away. I'm sorry those times happened because he's a good man, but extremely shy and very socially awkward and I just wasn't sure how to relate to him. I know that may seem weird, but I just didn't know what to do so one day I just thought to myself, just talk to him like you would any other person and see what happens. That revelation made all the difference and we slowly forged a relationship.

There are still challenges and to this day it still is hard for me to hold a "normal" conversation with him because it seems like I'm almost forcing him to talk, but I enjoy my time with him and have enjoyed getting to know my father. Regardless of how hard I've had to work at building my relationship and regardless of how long I waited to really try, I love him so much and this challenge has been worth every moment and a huge success.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That's wonderful that you and your dad are really making an effort and bonding. It sounds like it will be a good trip that you're embarking on! And that challenge looks great, too.

Christine said...

My dad is shy and socially awkward too, although maybe less than yours, I don't know.

That's a pretty ambitious challenge, I'm going to go check it out :)

Anonymous said...

Way to go on forging a relationship with your Dad! Life to short to spend it wishing you had attempted a relationship. It will give you some great memories you can share later in life!