Oh father, if you never wanted to live that way...why am I running away?

I honestly had nothing in my head tonight, and then when I got home from a meeting my housemates were watching Finding Nemo in the living room, and as the last tear ran down my face I knew I should share about why I love this movie so much, and why it holds so much meaning to me.

My father and I have always had a civil relationship, loving to a degree, but not extremely close. I used to think that maybe he hadn't gotten the son he had always hoped for. I was a big sissy growing up, semi effeminate always interested more in arts than in sports. Also he is a HUGE math geek, and does math for fun...and after 8th or 9th grade I just could not get math. So I was always a mama's boy, as many gay men are, and after they found out I was gay I think there was more tension between us, because this fortified , I think, to him that he would never see me get married and have children. But to his credit my father has always been very supportive of whatever I wanted to do with my life, he has supported me for the last 29 years of my life, and for that I am always grateful.

One of the sweet father son moments that has always resonated with me is during my first trip to Disney World in Orlando, when we were on It's a Small World, my dad looked at my mom and me and said “ This must be what heaven is like” (yeah yeah I know it is one of the most annoying songs in the world, and it is very plastic and kitschy, but think about it...he was trying to express that heaven must be beautiful like this in the sense that people of all races are living together peacefully and happily, so save your bitchy comments to yourself...if I can do it, you can too) so whenever I go to Disneyland, I always make sure to get on that ride and think of happier more innocent days like those.

My drug use definitely created a huge rift between us, I mean he raised me well enough to know that drugs are bad, also I think when I told them (well when my sister told them) I was HIV+ it might have led him to think to himself “what did I do wrong!?”, and the truthful answer is nothing, I did these things to myself. I made these stupid decisions and I must live with the consequences. Right before my previous sobriety, I recall sending my parents Finding Nemo on DVD (I send them movies I think they will like once in a while) and I received a message from my father, which in itself was rare, since he only called to yell at me for spending too much money or something. He left me a message saying, they watched the movie, and that he totally identified with it. He felt like he was Marlin and that I was Nemo, he had lost me and had been trying for years to find the me that he knew and loved. That totally broke my heart, and since then I haven't been able to keep a dry eye at the end of that movie. I feel that now, more than ever I am getting closer to becoming a man that he can be proud of and call his son. He inspires me to no end, and I love him very much. I don't think I tell him enough, but I do.