I miss my Dad so much. Today marks five years since he's been gone. I've thought about him every single day and cried for at least half of them. I don't just miss his presence, I miss how the world felt with him in it. After he passed, I felt myself in that old cliche, like I was literally missing a limb I hadn't noticed I'd had before.

He was the most important person in my life, obviously. For as long as I can remember (and I can remember farther back than most), he was there as my guide and protector through a chaotic universe, and his advice and love helped me become the person I am today.

A wisened drug dealer once noted that I seemed to carry my Dad everywhere with me, and this was while he was still alive. It's something I went over in therapy quite a bit. He wasn't the smothering sort, but he did enable a certain kind of learned helplessness in me and my mother. A big part of him needed to be needed, and I think that while he wanted me to attain independence, the idea of me succeeding in that scared him.

I think about the things that scare me a lot these days, how they're like little invisible barriers that keep me set on a path not of my own making. The sorts of momentary pangs of fright that aren't even noticeable in a day full of unpredictable falling debris. Things like hesitating to text a pretty person who offered me their number, or to not push myself for an extra rep or two on a benchpress. Y'know, the complacency of routine.

My Dad sought complacency. He told me once that his greatest dream would be to find a lovely little place out of the way that belonged to just him and my Mom, and to spend his years stagnating. Unlikely as it seemed at the time he told me this, he did end up spending the last seven years of his life doing just that.

Complacency is often a dirty word in our society. When espoused in good faith, it generally encourages a dynamic life full of new growth and the beauty of being human. Generally though, I can't shake the feeling that most of the time the rhetoric against complacency is just a way for someone to sell something.

A dear friend of mine recently espoused the virtues of contentment to me while I was in a funk about my lack of passion. She finds the beauty in the stability and complacency of her life among her treasures and treats and the love she receives from the world around her. I myself don't live too different a life, among my own vaulted hoard of all the things I'd ever found myself wanting while on my own quest to have just enough.

I put a couple quarters into a machine in a mysterious witchcraft store on the south side of Columbus a few months ago and received the Knight of Wands, and it reminded me of the time of my life when I was a jet engine, made of ambition and seeking anything but contentment. It made me ask myself when I seemed to run out of fuel.

Of course, that ambition came from believing I would never find comfort in this life. I had lived a tumultuous series of years that seemed to promise a never ending supply of grief, and trust me when I say that the universe has continued to deliver- but I've found a great deal of succor in the eye of the storm.

I'm not terribly interested in serving the interests of capital anymore, and one great perk of being an IT guy is that I don't generate revenue. I recall the words of my Dad after he retired and bought this gigantic kinda ruined house in northeast Ohio just a stone's throw from the lake: "I've never worked harder in my life, but it's all for us and not to make some rich man even richer." I'd never seen him happier than the days he spent repairing that house into a veritable palace.

Ashtabula was a nice place for him to end up. Only problem for me is that I'm not ready to end up anywhere. Maybe I could sell all my treasures and gather my savings and find some place far and out of the way and just stagnate. Maybe not too far from the ocean.

But y'know how it is. Promises to keep and all that. He left my Mom behind and she's more helpless than I am. We've both had to learn a lot about living in a world where we make all the decisions.

And in the meantime, there's a lot of life left to live. Pretty people to text, reps to push myself for. Miniatures to paint. Too many videogames I want to finish. DnD games to run. Hell, I've been getting back into metal recently after meeting some pretty metalheads. It's about time I did something with my keyboard anyway.

That's life, isn't it? Lovely and full of twists and turns and to be worn gloriously up until your last moment. I find myself surfing along the tides of terror as the world seemingly falls apart but as I said before, I find succor within the eye of the storm.

I bet my Dad would be pretty impressed with me right now.

I miss you, Dad.