Today I woke up thinking about my parents. I don't know if they read my blog or not--I'd assume they don't, because my generation's parents don't really care to know about things like blogs. The concept of an online journal where you write feelings and things about your personal life is something that most folks from my parents' age don't understand. See, back then, a diary was a diary, and if you went around showing your diary to everyone you knew, you'd get made fun of, or looked at like you were a mutant. And if you happened to be a male doing these things, well, you might as well be homeschooled or homosexual.

My sister is getting married in October, and I've been toying around with the idea of writing a toast-type speech to make everyone cry when we're all boozed up. I think it'd be a wonderful bonding experience. But, seeing as how everyone started loudly sobbing before my dad even said a word at the engagement party, I'm worried I can't pull it off because he did it so well.

I've mulled it over since his speech. What made that lump happen in everyone's throat, even people who had just met my father that night? Since my father doesn't say those things very often, and I am his daughter, I held on to every single word like I'd never hear it again. And probably for good reason: he might never have the forum to say something like that to me, because I don't really want to get married. Man, I'm losing my cool just thinking about it.

I'd like to say I am skilled with words, and that I don't know where it came from, it was born of internal struggles, intense self-loathing, the roller coaster of life, whatever. But hearing my father pull something like that off the top of his head erased all doubt where my favorite knack came from. He had absolutely no idea he was supposed to make a toast. And the bastard NAILED IT.

How did he nail it, though? How did he pull that off with less than 5 minutes preparation? The most my dad writes is lists of things to do for the day. It kind of got me thinking about the era of no public forum, no blogosphere, no... outlets. My dad is still living in that era for all intents and purposes. All my life, he's said things like "I'd rather be fishing," and "Kids are holes in wallets". But still, all my life, I've wanted to be successful--half for myself, and half so I could buy my dad a camp on Grand Isle. I told him that once. He didn't believe me.

But he, more so than anyone I know, has things to write about. He works in a paper mill that he abhors with all of his existence. He is trapped in his life, his mortgage. Gave up a career playing music and doing drugs to have a family. My father is depressed. My father is so depressed, and has been so for so long, that everyone in that room could see it, even if they had only known him for an hour. All of that builds up in a person with no outlet.

And I guess, just to hear him say that he loved his daughter was enough to bring the room crashing. This toast had the atmosphere of 26 years of build-up. Everyone felt it.

Let me explain that better: I've wanted to buy my dad out of his life for as long as I can remember, to show him that it can be happy, and that he doesn't have to suffer every day to be alive, like he's taught me. And then he pulls that rug out from under my sisters and I. We can't do that anymore, because all this time, we've done that without money, and without knowing it.

"I hope someday, these two can be as happy as I am right now." The bastard made me weep.