I ponied up and told my dad about India and it went…. opposite of how I expected.

Parents can have one of two reactions when their child drops a bomb on them: they can support them even if they are dumb beyond measure, or they can lose their marbles and still not change the situation.

I thought my dad was going to go into cardiac arrest so I chose to tell him right before we went to a funeral because, well, nothing is actually worse than death so my traveling the world would have to look pretty good. I prepped him by giving him some worst case facial expressions along with “Dad, I need a ride to the airport and I don’t want to tell you where I am going because I’m panicked about your reaction.”

Immediately the skepticism was present on his face and the two most important questions determining my future flowed out of his mouth with that dad-like sternness that puts fear in your heart and makes your innards shrivel.

“Is it communist?”

“Is it Iraq?”

How he did not guess the ‘armpit of the world’ off the bat, I don’t know. So after he accepted the fact that no, I wasn’t going to the Middle East, he launched into the more surprising parental situation of my life. “You are 22-years-of-age! You can do what you want!”

Wasn’t I supposed to be convincing him of that? Not the other way around? What kind of monster is okay with this? After staring at the man who I thought was my father for the last 22 years, I decided to read him my blog as a concise way to explain just how I put myself into this pickle.

I also used my blog as a way to say “Bob. You could have known this all along. It was right here on the internet. All of your friends knew.” The whole confession turned into me telling him what a poor detective he is and him telling me I am an adult and can do what I want, dammit!

Life is weird and kids are unpredictable. But I leave in 2 days! All I have to do is get myself on an airplane, not get malaria, and come home in one piece, preferably with my bowels intact.

XOXO
-Daughter of the Year