RE: How I met my father after 33 years - part 1

I sat there, unable to speak, and relieved that I was alone during this moment. It was like a Tsunami of emotional baggage over thirty-three years was fast approaching, and I was frozen in my steps.

I had always wondered if this was ever going to happen in my lifetime. To be honest with you, I had given up and resolved that it never would... that's why I think it hit me so hard. I was coming face to face with my greatest fears, anger, joy, excitement, sadness, happiness, and any other emotion you could toss in the pot.

I had a choice. I could move forward and face the unknown or I could continue to rest in that place of numbness that bottling up everything over the years had brought me to. I decided to step out, sort of like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, onto the invisible pathway that was before me.

I had to gather and compose myself. This was going to be the first time in thirty-three years that I would hear the voice of my dad. Up until that point I had only heard stories. I had not even seen a picture of him. I had nothing... only stories. As you can imagine, this fact brought an onslaught of mixed emotions while I was growing up and continued to be that way into my mid to late twenty's. After that point, I had always wondered, but accepted things for what they were. I was a bastard. I would never find my dad.

I had tried several times before to find my dad. All at different points in my life. All attempts ending with failure and re-opening that scar that had hurt me so deeply in the first place.

So, as you can probably imagine that after all this time, I was a wreck. I had finally found the man that I searched for most of my life. I was unsure of what his reaction was going to be. Whether he would accept me or reject me. Whether I would be a welcome intrusion or an inconvenient truth. All I knew is that I needed closure. The first step, though, was to step out in spite of my fears,  and dial the ten digits that would provide for me an opportunity to mark that very moment with great fondness or incredible hurt.

I couldn't breathe. My fingers were shaking. I had so many tears welling up in my eyes that it was hard to see the dial pad. I felt naked, alone, insecure, and afraid. There was no safety net to catch me and I was willingly putting myself in the line of fire. What would I say? I mean, what do you say to a person that you have never seen, heard, or met for thirty-three years? How the hell do you even begin a conversation like that?

I had always thought about it. I rehearsed in my mind what I would say countless times. Funny thing is, I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say or worse yet, what if I got his voicemail?... I hate leaving messages on voicemail.

So, I took the biggest gulp of my life.With fingers trembling I dialed, put the phone against my ear, and waited. The phone began to ring which sent a flurry of emotions into my soul all at once, without any regard to how I felt. The Tsunami was coming.

He answered: "hello?"

READ PART TWO HERE