My letter to 12 year old Riley

I remembered today that I wrote Riley the letter below on her birthday last year. I guess it's safe to post it now. I'd love to share it with her some day. I broke down rereading it. I want her life to be great. And I ended my relationship with sarita, in part, to make sure the kids got a better life. To have had the good times with them the last few months has meant a lot. My dad had already lost me at the age my kids are now, but riley and blake actually like spending time with me and that's overwhelming. i know i made the right decision when i chose to break up with sarita. i picked the kids. i picked giving them their home back. the relationship added chaos. and the kids don't deserve that. my head gets to focus on my own issues these days and not my relationship issues. there's more of me to give the kids. riley turned 13 today and i can safely say she got the best present i could have given her...she has her dad back.

Hey riley…it’s your birthday. You’re 12 today. It just turned 11:11pm and I’m all worn out. I can’t stop crying. Oh daddy…get a grip. J I love you so much kiddo and really don’t want you to grow up any faster. I was just thinking how you’re 2/3 of the way to 18. That was a little overwhelming…thus the tears. I’ve been a good dad in some ways, but the tears really came as I thought about the ways I’ve let you down over the years.

In this life, people are going to let us down, even your dad. Shocker? Not so much right? But, I want to make sure you know I’ll always be there for you to talk through things and try to fix whatever I break. I was thinking tonight about how we spent about 5 years in the Nall house. broken homes just aren’t how things are supposed to go. I’m sorry you had to live through that. we just kind of learn to survive when our childhoods aren’t ideal. It hurts and there’s pain, but we’re too young to know how to deal with that. But, those wounds come back up when we’re older and my dream for you is that real will always be more important than pretending everything is fine. Everything is not fine kiddo. No one is fine.

But the mistake most people make is saying they’re fine. That’s not real, is it? Everyone has their sh*t. (did you just say, “beeeeep…daddy…earmuffs…I’m only 12”) Everyone suffers from the same misfortune…they have parents. And parents aren’t perfect. If we’re real about that we have a chance to be actual humans…and that’s what I dream for you…that you will grow up to value real over “fine” and find friends and other relationships that share that value. Plastic is for Barbie, my dear…and you grew out of barbies at a very early age.

I don’t think they make real dolls, do they? Like in the Disney fairy tales the princess and prince never get divorced. They live happily ever after. I can’t wait till you get older and I can watch some of my favorite movies with you. They’re more like real life. They have a lot more real. And when someone captures the hurt in a movie that we’ve experienced in real life, it brings up powerful emotions. It helps us deal with what we’ve been through. And you, sweetheart, have been through a lot.

I’ve always loved having story time with other people who have been through a lot. That was my favorite part about going to the clarette. No one was trying to look good. We were all a mess and we knew it. We’d tell stories of our pain. And when our story overlaps or intersects with another real person, it’s a pretty powerful experience.

Anyway, we’ve had a lot of stories to tell about these last 7 years since Mommy asked me to leave the Nall house, don’t we? Someone you’ll meet some day will have a similar story and it will feel good to talk about it and feel like someone understands you. It hurts now. And it will probably always hurt, but there’s healing in talking about your pain…with other people or with therapists like Dr. Grace.

I’ll try as best I can to help you make sense of it and will tell you all the details you want to hear when the time is right. I’ll go to therapy with you when the time comes. I just want you to know I’m on your side, fighting with you…k k? I love you a lot Riley Grace and wanting to give my kids something better than nana and pop pop gave me is really important to me.

The other thing that got my tears really flowing today was realizing how few birthdays are left in your childhood. I don’t get nearly enough time with you. I got really sad today, because your birthday didn’t go how I wanted it to. Sarita was mad about something and was being short with me, so instead of just having a great time at the mall with my favorite girl (hey…that’s you)…my head was distracted and I was frustrated. As the tears were streaming down my face tonight I was telling sarita that I would have rather gotten you no presents and just been able to spend the day with you and had fun having daddy/riley time. I hope you still had fun today. I didn’t go quite like I wanted it to. I mean, it was really fun to be with you and watch you do your thing, but it was really not fun to be distracted by grown up problems and to think that that nonsense might have taken away from your birthday fun.

As I was crying I couldn’t stop thinking of ways I’ve let you down. Like the time I overslept and didn’t pick you up on time from Shawnee mission camp. Or the times I slept on Sunday afternoons instead of being a dad. I’ve had a lot of down times. I’ve struggled a lot. And the times I’ve had a hard time battling have affected you and blake. Grace and writing have helped with that and just talking to friends helps too, but I’m never going to be perfect. I guess tonight I got sad about all the stuff that we’ve missed out on. 12 years is a long time to be alive. And I wish I could have spent more time with you. This 50/50 stuff is for the birds, but I love the time we get together. And we just have to make the most of the time we have.

I love going to target with you and having talk time. I love the times we get to be real. I love going to taylor swift or echosmith or confetti crew or Michigan or st Louis or Chicago and Disneyworld is okay too. I went through all my pictures on facebook tonight. I saw the daddy/daughter dance pictures. And pictures from all the events I mentioned above. Lots of great memories. You’re a great kid and I’m so proud of you and so lucky to be your dad and to have gotten to experience everything together…the good times and the bad.

All that to say…you’re the best and I really want to make these last 6 years of “childhood” the best of all. And oh…hey…I’m not kicking you out at 18…you can always come home…I just meant it symbolically…like that’s when you’re going to become an adult. You’ll be a teenager before we know it. And then old enough to drive and then you’re off to college. So much great stuff is ahead of you riley. I wish I believed in myself 1/100^th of how much you believe in yourself. I can’t wait to see who you grow up to be. Scratch that. I can wait. It can go really, really, really slow, right? Happy birthday 12 year old. I want to say sorry for all the times I come up short and say thank you for being such a great daughter. Your daddy loves you to pieces.