California

My trip to California led me to realize why it is that people say we will one day turn into our parents. Since I live with my mom full time I am extremely aware of all the ways we are alike. We spend day in and day out together, less now than we did when I was a child, but still this has lead me to share many qualities with her. Because I grew up most of my life, without my dad around a majority of the time, on account of my parents were divorced, I never really got many opportunities to observe the qualities we did share. When i would spend summers in California, as a child, I was too young to be aware of things of that nature. Not to say that I was not an emotionally intelligent child, because I feel I was, but because more of my focus was spent on soaking up every moment with my dad.

Now that I am older, and my visits are infrequent in comparison to times in Elementary and middle school, I take in every detail of time with my dad. I try to enjoy our time together, as limited as it is, but also make every observation I didn't as a little girl. I watch my dad perform daily tasks and note his reaction and response to every situation. Not only do I then create some mental portfolio for who is he as person, but compare his own portfolio to mine and scan for similarities. Sometimes it is in our similar sense of humor, or how we freak out the second we misplace something, convinced it is gone forever. Our shared enjoyment in afternoon naps or our practical ways of thinking. I wonder if we would share more similarities than we do if he had raised me instead of my mom. Would I have acquired more of his endearing traits, or ones he wished were not inherent within him? Are we all doomed to turn out like our parents regardless of their amount of participation in our lives? And if we do, is it really such a bad thing?