Today is Father’s Day in Australia, so I guess that’s what I’ll be talking about today. It was a #childfree weekend, but Rachel brought the Kinderbesten over in the morning to give me gifts and have some late breakfast.
Father’s Day itself means very little to me–it’s an excuse to sell cards, and there’s rarely a day goes by where I don’t, in some way, get a more genuine sign of appreciation from the Kinderbesten. In some ways, I’m still surprised to find myself a father. In other ways, it feels like something that I always wanted to be, even though I never actively sought it out. Inevitably, now that my marriage has ended, the Kinderbesten have become the main focus of my life and my relationship with them is all the better for it. While I still make sure to have a life of my own, I’m content to come home from work each day and cook for them, make their lunches, get them in the bath, put them to bed, etc. And I never forget how lucky I am to be able to do that.
We ended the day, mostly by a quirk of timing, by watching one of the most father-centric films I can think of: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. I’ll always love it because it’s funny and awesome, but also because almost every character gets to provide at least some commentary on fatherhood: whether it’s Rocket acting as a surrogate father to Groot; or Nebula and Gamora fighting over what their own surrogate father took from them; or Drax innocently revealing his father’s fireside tales of his own conception. Obviously the theme of ‘father’ vs ‘daddy’ is the big one, and the last ten minutes or so will probably never stop bringing tears to my eyes.
I’m pretty lucky that I get to be both a father and a daddy 🙂