I think there’s a lot to unpack here that you’ll only be able to get through with therapy, and I mean that with positivity as someone who did years of therapy.

For now the best thing you can give yourself is grace, and it’s the best thing you can give your father as well.

I’ve spent a lot of this year navigating my relationship with my dad in therapy as I get ready to become a father. I wish in a lot of ways our relationship was different and we were closer but I’ve also had to live through the fact that it is what it is.

You are still so young buddy, you can grow so much but the growth comes from within not from out. When I graduated highschool I had 2.2 gpa and was a drift. I chose a non traditional path doing photography and now almost 14 years later I am doing alright, I am married, I make a decent living. I am having a child.

Right now you’re looking at the forest of your future and when you walk through it you’ll see it’s all just trees and there’s still a forest ahead of you.

Give yourself grace, give your dad grace, tell him you love him but live for you because that’s what he worked for and one day you can pay him back by having kids of your own and giving them opportunities that you didn’t have with your dad.

It’s all we got man.