Project Dad-itude

It truly is a happy Father's Day

I used to have a story about my dad that if he were just different I could be okay/happy. We moved 27 times because he suffered from mental illness and loved to move on a manic high. I told myself the story that if we had just stayed in one place like “normal people” did I might have had a “normal” life. I might know stuff like how to sustain relationships and have consistency, etc.

He loved to camp in the mountains, he was a nomadic mountain man, a cowboy, never happier than sleeping on dirt or in a tent and frequently took us on trips to Colorado. Much of his life was about trying to get back to Colorado and even at age 70-ish while preparing to move again, he told me “I just want to follow my dreams like you did when you moved to California, Melinda.”

I found in my professional life that this nomadic childhood really served me when I went into show business and found myself on projects with people for a month or 3 months at a time, where we became very intensely close and then parted ways. I was able to leave people I loved- important life skill! But still I felt secretly broken…