Aching

I would do absolutely anything in this world to hear my father talk to me the way he did when I was little.

This is why I don't watch baby videos. Because I see how my family used to be, even before my sister came along: my mother was so beautiful, and my father's voice is so happy. He never talks like that now. He's never happy like that anymore. I want to hear him speak that way again so badly, it's literally an ache in my chest and arms.

We were never the perfect family. My parents had a rocky marriage right from the beginning, and neither of them are saints. But when I watch the videos of me as a tiny baby, splashing around in the bath and bouncing in my bouncy-chair, I can see how happy that made them. How happy I made them. They may not have been the world's best people, but they loved me so completely, and they were wonderful parents. Now everything is different. Everything is totally different. They still love me, but they don't love each other. And they don't love me in the same way.

My parents love me just as strongly now as they did when I was a baby. I know that. But I'm not tiny and adorable anymore. Today, my mother launched into a five-minute tirade about some problems she's having with a friend. She told me she "wanted my wisdom." I love that my mother and I have such a great relationship. With her, I can be a grown up or a little kid. I can be weak and angry, strong and purposeful, and everything else in between. She still calls me names like "honey" and "bunny." I love my mother.

I love my father. But I don't feel like "daddy's little girl" anymore. He never calls me anything other than "Es", "Esther", or maybe "Jojo" if he's in a hurry. He used to have all sorts of names for me, and the way he said them...I can't describe it, but it made me feel so safe, so cared about. It made me feel like I was special because my dad loved me. And the tone in his voice as he talks to Baby!Me is the best part. He is absolutely happy. I made him happy. I can't do that anymore.

I want that so badly. I want to be able to talk to my dad like he's my dad again, instead having all this distance and pressure and unspoken stuff between us. I don't know how to explain what's changed. Part of it is age; I want to be younger and older at the same time, and he wants me to be younger. In trying to treat me like an adult, he treats me like I'm a friend or a cousin. Not a daughter. I want to be treated like a daughter. I am a daughter. I'm his daughter. And I love him so much, and I miss him so much.

I want to be the adorable baby who makes the crazy cackling noise. I want to jump around in my crib and play with my busybox and throw my sunglasses on the ground. I want my daddy to carry me around in the backpack, and I want my mommy to dry me off with my puppy towel when I'm done with my bath. Most of all, I want to have grown up into the person that little baby deserved to be. And right now, I don't think I have.

I miss my father. I miss being able to touch him like a dad, and speak to him like a dad, and lean on him like a dad. Just once, I want to be the center of his universe again. And I know how selfish that sounds, and right now I don't care.

I would do anything, give anything, and be anything if I could just hear him call me "his girl" one more time.