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Dear Dad,
Happy Father’s Day! I sent you a card but I’m pretty sure you’re not where the card is today so I’m turning to the interwebs because the interwebs is everywhere, sort of like God. I know it looks like I’m late acknowledging you by a day, but really I’m not. Australia is on the other side of the international date line from the US, so we’re a day ahead. The 22nd here is the 21st there. Also, Father’s Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September in Australia, so I’m not even late wishing you a happy father’s day here anyway. We can talk about my logic and my timeliness again in two months.
All excuses aside though, I would like to highlight and recognise a good moment in parenting. Your parenting to be exact. Let’s go to the wayback machine and set it for my teenage years.
It is 1996 or maybe 1997, whatever year it is that you relent and let me “borrow” the old suits from your closet. The world should know that you have excellent taste. You used to own these beautiful three piece suits in lovely colours and polyester, custom tailored for you in late-seventies LA. Fitted jackets. Vests. Alarmingly flared bell bottoms. I was fifteen, I was struggling with my self-confidence, and I was pretty sure that if I was allowed to integrate your suits into my very boring wardrobe, then I would be awesome. I also had designs on Mom’s clothes from the early 80’s, but the fabrics in your closet were so much better.
Amazingly enough, I was allowed access to both y’all’s closets. So off to school I’d skip, wearing your old powder blue bell bottoms and one of Mom’s knitted acrylic vests over a tee. Or maybe I’d borrow your brown suit with a fitted shirt (also from your closet). Or maybe I’d pair skinny jeans with an oversized striped tee from my closet, and then your grey vest over the whole atrocity. And then there were the too-long, kelly green bell bottoms. I have no idea where those came from but my fifteen year old heart believed they were perfect.
Sometimes I look at the indie-hipster-emo kids and the way they dress now, and I wonder what they’ll think in ten years’ time about their sartorial shenanigans. I suppose that since there are others who are complicit, they won’t look out of place. But also, they wear their clothes with irony while I wore mine with enthusiasm. One of those emotions is less embarrassing than the other.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure there were days I left the house and your eyes hurt. In fact, you told me so, many times. Thanks for the straight talk, Dad, and thanks for driving me to school, dressed in those outfits. Also, thanks for not creating a body of photographic evidence with which to torment me now.
Love,
Kim
