Getting a dog in the winter was an interesting decision. Nobody likes to be outside when it’s like this. The cats don’t like it. I don’t like it. Zorro can handle it for about a half hour and then he is over it too. Once I see him shiver then I have to let him back in. Dad is gone until later tonight after leaving on Sunday for his camp trip. He said next year it’s in South Carolina on the beach and if I was done with school we should go together.

I don’t enjoy when he’s gone. Frankly, it makes my life harder. We had this whole conversation before he left that was kind of making fun of the way I used to do things. “I’ll try not to be mad at you”, I said, joking but serious. And whether he was serious or not when he said he didn’t understand what there would be to be mad at for him going to work. I said it’s because you’re doing something fun without me.

While I am home struggling. And it wouldn’t even be so bad if I could come to you and complain about how much it sucked when you were gone. I would do that with any friend and we would listen to each other and say it sucks and move on talking about something else. But you’re not supposed to really say what you’re feeling when it comes to venting your frustrations. You’re supposed to say something like, “Hey, I miss you.”

But it wasn’t the pains of missing I was feeling. It was the pains of struggle and toil. But sharing that didn”t bring us closer, instead it drove between us an unbearable wedge. It’s unproductive to let him know how hard I had it while he was away. He’s completely different. I’ll be gone and things are fine and he will show no signs that anything was hard for him ever. I said we need to reverse this a little, balance this out.

I missed him last night and I told him. He said he was having dreams. They were in the middle of a chapel service and wouldn’t be done until 10PM. I opened up one of my three books that came in the mail. It’s like this study book package that is supposed to prepare you for NCE and CECE tests we have to take and pass. The hardest one you can take up to three times. If you fail it after that then you have to stay another semester.