What I learned from dad

You might not remember, or maybe I didn’t ever tell you what I felt, when you told me to go for dinner once when I was – one up, one down –  twelve years old. We went to this Japanese place in Chueca we had always seen but never been to. Chris was with us.

We were having dinner and you told me you had two important things to tell me. I got instantly pretty nervous– I just felt the nerves running through my body again, almost ten years after – because I didn’t know what you meant with it. The first thing you said was that you were not going to travel to Madrid as often anymore.

I remember I felt the tears growing in my eyes and I didn’t know how to hold them.  I wanted to be with you and you were saying you were not going to come anymore – you didn’t say anymore, but that was how it felt. I was desolated. I didn’t know what to do and how to tell you that please, continue traveling as often as you did. So many emotions running through my body. So many things to say. I was mad pissed. After that, you smiled and said: I’m not traveling anymore because I’m moving to Madrid!

I didn’t know how to react. What the fuck was wrong with you. You moved me from absolute desolation to pure happiness in less than a minute. I could have fainted. I don’t remember if I burst into tears or I just looked at you, pale and silently, waiting for my body to react. I have such a good memory of that dinner. I still remember your face, Chris smiling in front of you and my confusion. This is a good memory.

I love looking back and seeing all the things we did together. I can’t remember them all and that’s lucky of me. I remember random ones like you teaching me how to sew a “teddy whatattack” or however you want to call them. Futurama and pretty spicy lentejas con chorizo in that room you had rented at the beginning, when we had just moved in to Europe. When you felt asleep in the cinema watching Peter Pan; when I felt asleep in the cinema watching that boring, psychological movie you didn’t like either. Playing football in the park, drawing that notebook you gifted me and writing the stories for each character I drew. Every time you came to pick me up from the airport; every time we left together. When we drove the Poncho from Lisbon to Madrid right before I started 4^th grade. Our first conversation about explicit sex when we were having dinner in France on our way to Rennes le Château.

It’s such a pleasure, such a gift all the time we’ve been together. You’ve been boring very, very few times in this 20 years we have shared. I’ve seen you grow older, get whiter hair and fall in love. I’ve seen you cry very few times and I remember all of them, by some reason. I’ve felt how you, step by step, became someone I want to be like in the future. An example, an inspiration, an idol.

I’ve also suffered. I’ve been sad when you weren’t where I wanted you to be. When you came and I didn’t feel you were there; when you chose another plan instead of me or when you couldn’t fully understand what I was feeling and what I emotionally needed in that moment. I don’t blame you, I would never.

I’ve seen how shy you are underneath your skin when you don’t want to ask me to stay instead when I want to go out, or to do something together when I'm planning something with my friends. That ‘I don’t want to be nuisance’ attitude that I will never understand because I love spending time with you, even if that means listening to your reflexions for two hours straight with a very high-pitch laugh once in a while.

I learn every time I’m with you. I judge your ideas and I learn from the way you have to explain your beliefs. I value your determination and I see what you’ve done and what you have reached with different eyes than yours, that look at it with pride, but also doesn’t really care much about it.

You shaped my way to become who I am right now. I can say this twice in my life: if I can write about things I’ve learnt is because you taught me to learn.

I don’t know if you are the best dad in the world, but you are definitely the dad that best suited me and the best one I could ask for.

All this time together and this is just the beginning, what’s to come will be spectacular as it has always been.

I’m forever thankful,

Love you, Simón.