"You Know Better"

"You know better, Natalie Lynn"

"Who?"

"Me?"

"Moi?"

"Know better??"

"Surely not"  :)

"Don't play coy with me, young lady."

"Oh c'mon, can't I just go through this world with a f%ck off attitude when I'm mad?"

"No, you may not. I've raised you better than that. My daughter can be cooperative....oh and your language....I applied an exception of extreme stress yesterday, but you had better damn well clean up your mouth now. Got it, little girl?"

**Thinking to myself.....hmmm.....he sounded pretty serious there.....I should probably save the eye rolling, sighs and smart-ass back talk for a different day.**

"Yes Sir."    <--------See? I aint completely insane. :)  I'm learning *when* to shut up. Smart girl :) 

So I am still away from home and dealing with nonsense I'd rather...well...just not. 

Last week I was felling completely disconnected from everything at home...friends, work, family and yes, discipline. Just sort of a lost out at sea and drifting freely feeling. I distance to protect myself. The longer I'm away, the more I miss him and missing him hurts.....so I guess I figured subconsciously that if I disconnected, it wouldn't hurt as much. So I pulled away...distanced for a few days...but the more I disconnected, the more I just needed my Dad. 

So, at least this week is a bit better. 

I'm still gone...and I'm incredibly stressed...and I feel physically as ran down as I am emotionally...

But knowing all I'm dealing with, my Dad made sure to stay in close contact this weekend...even though he had to run around a steel building searching for enough cell signal to call me. :)  Hearing his voice of course makes me miss him more, but it's also just really calming and balancing for me...he knows that and made sure to give me plenty of voice time this weekend. 

Then, Monday, was a hard day. Incredibly hard and stressful. I wanted to just run home to my Dad and hide and refuse to do this...but I couldn't...I was going to have to do this, no matter how difficult it was. So since he couldn't physically be here with me, I took his voice in lecture downloads on my phone in with me so he was in my ears. :) 

And now today, we spoke again. And after disconnecting our call...I just smiled. He was characteristically strict with me and that was just really reassuring to me. Despite the geographical distance and despite my feeling like crap.....he still laid out his expectations in the form of non-negotiable mandates. Sweet, right? It actually kinda is and it made me smile...the familiarity, the security, the reassurance...I might have argued a bit, but I loved it. :)