As I stare at the picture I found while looking for something, I know I have been lying to myself. And, as such, to everyone else.

She was so small, so gentle, so innocent. I changed that. I introduced her to the world and now she has baggage like the rest of us. I had to; it was my duty. I understand this and I do not regret it. It had to be done. Still, I reflect on the state of affairs and can’t help but feel it.

I was not ready for my girl to grow up, even though I guided and prodded it along. She was there long before she knew it; before I knew it. And then she was gone. Out the door into her life. Daddy’s little girl isn’t any more.

She is in college. She has a boyfriend and many other friends. Certainly, we are still friends and I am not upset that she is grown up. I am so very proud of her and the way she lives. She has a strong moral code and expects others to have one as well. And yet, she doesn’t push hers on them, but insists that they not push theirs on her. She fights for what she believes is right, even if it is not by force. She is a friend of the artful brush and of spirited word. She uses them to make people happy, including herself. She is truly an artist in her heart and it makes me extremely proud.

So when I say I was not ready for her to grow up, I don’t mean that I didn’t want it or that I regret her doing so.  I meant *I* wasn’t ready.

I really didn’t prepare for the open world ahead of me. Although I am there when she needs me, mostly for money or an ear to help with a problem, she rarely does need me now. I have prepared her well to deal with the people of the world, those that would help her and hurt her, and how to know the difference.

I love my girl. I love her more than I love anything else, as anyone who knows me at all can clearly tell without me saying it. I just don’t really love myself. And now that I find myself alone, like Inigo Mantoya, done with my quest.  And, like him (insert Spanish accent here) I just don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.

I feel like I am setting sea on the ocean with no course and a strong wind at my back, hurling me out to see. Only, I don’t know how to sail. And I don’t know where to go or where I want to be. I can literally go anywhere in the world. Where to now? What great adventure awaits?

Oddly, I am still motivated by my daughter who told me, “Daddy, I want you to do what you want to do. Be happy now.” And so I struggle with the question, as the tears well up in my eyes, so that I will not disappoint the only person in the world who truly knows me and loves me anyway. I can barely read the words on the screen through the liquid that shows the pain on my face on its way to the floor.

So, my dearest daughter, I will figure it out.   Don’t you worry about me.  I will do something. I don’t know what, yet, but I will. I will. Very soon, I will dig myself out of this dark place I am in, that I had buried until I saw this picture today.  But as I clear out the rubble, all I can hear in my head are these words.

I was not ready.