Father's Day

Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Category: Love

Published On: June 22, 2026 | Last Updated On: June 22, 2026

My dad died in May. This is my first Father's Day without him.

I haven't cried yet.

I don't know what to do with that. There's a voice that won't shut up, asking what's wrong with me - shouldn't I be a mess by now? I feel it. I know I feel it. My voice shakes when I try to talk about him. The tears get right to the edge and just... stop. Like they're waiting for permission I haven't figured out how to give.

Saturday I got to spend a few hours with my best friend. We don't get to do that as much anymore. My schedule has shifted a lot over the past year - between everything with my dad, changes at work, the general reconfiguration of my life. I used to keep weird hours. Now I'm in bed by ten, and the people I love most tend to start their nights right around the time I'm ending mine. That gap is something I'm still adjusting to.

But it was good. Genuinely good. There was a moment where I almost said it - the not-crying, the waiting, all of it. She's one of the few people I can usually tell anything. I wanted to share him with her - thoughts, feelings, the memories that have been sitting with me.

But I froze. We've only recently started making time like this again, and I was afraid of ruining it - of being the bummer I've felt like lately, of giving her a reason not to want to spend time with me.

So I spent the day alone. It's the only Father's Day I can remember spending completely by myself. And I think that's why it sat as heavy as it did - the grief and the missing him had nowhere to go, no one to share with. Just me and the quiet and the words I'd swallowed the night before.