When I was nine, my father wrote me a letter
With the last words he would ever say to me
He wrote about love and sacrifice
And said he hadn’t always been a good man
He didn’t go into detail because he thought he’d have more time to explain
He wrote about my mother and asked me to be good
He wrote about my brothers and asked me to take care of them
They were so young then
The last thing he asked me to do was find God
He didn’t say how and he didn’t say in what way
Because he wanted me to do it on my own
Be my own enlightened being
I was always independent, and he knew that
Now that it’s been 12 years, I can’t help but think I’ve disappointed him
I left my mother 300 miles away, and those 300 miles so easily turned into across the country
I left my brothers unguided
Was I selfish to pursue independence away from them?
I haven’t found God yet either
Not that I don’t believe
I just don’t know where to look
Sometimes I remember my mom used to tell me God is everywhere and in everything
But when I look around me, I see so much pain and confusion
Sometimes I wish I could just have one last conversation with my father
To ask him to explain that letter to me now that I’m older
Because I still don’t have answers
And I don’t ever expect to find them
But I need some sense of direction
Some sense of purpose
I feel like I lived 21 lives
Each year I was a new person
And all those lives led me to the here and now
Yet sometimes, I still can’t answer the question of who I am
I like to think back on what life used to be like
When I knew so much less
They weren’t wrong to say ignorance is bliss
There are fewer things to overthink
I think about the past, so I don’t have to ask myself
Would my father be proud of who I am today?
I’ll just drown out the voices and listen to Normal Girl all day
“Wish I was the type of girl that you take over to mama
The type of girl, I know my daddy, he’d be proud of
Yeah, be proud of
Be proud of, be proud, you know, you know”
God, I hope he’s proud