Skip to main content

Here's to you, Dad

Today is my dad's birthday!

This deserves a blog post for the obvious reason, today 48 years ago the world became a better place because my dad was born. It also deserves a blog post because this year is the first birthday, well in my lifetime, that I will not be celebrating with him and the rest of my family. I guess that could be considered a good thing since it shows that I'm growing up and taking on new adventures but it also means that there is a little part of my heart crying out for home. 

If you know my dad, you know how great of an influence he is to all people,  myself included. My dad is a man that persistently seeks God, always makes time for others, and constantly invites adventure and fun into my family's life. My dad is a man of deep love, abundant talent, fruitful leadership, and never ending kindness. I've learned this not only because of his love, guidance and presence in my life but also by watching him interact with so many people over the course of my life.  
Coming to Texas and, so far, managing on my own has made me realize how lucky  I am to have the father I have been blessed with. From teaching me how to ride a bike, to parallel parking (several life lessons there), to navigating a new city on my own, my dad shown me that life is just one big adventure. He's taught me that dreams are meant to be followed and failure doesn't mean give up, it just means keep trying. My dad, along with my mom, has shaped most of who I am and all I aspire to be, which I am extremely grateful for. 

So this one is for you dad, thanks for all you've done. Not only for me personally but for mom because it's shown me how a man should love his wife, for Tyler, Thomas and Coby because it's shown me how a dad should support his sons, for the people you lead at church because it's shown me how to be a dedicated leader, and for the people you may never see again because it's shown me how to be a gentle heart. I'm blessed to be your little girl and I know that now more than ever. I'll be celebrating from Texas! 

Always,


Kayla
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Day in the Life...

I designed this blog to help people from back home stay with me as I venture into this new chapter of my life. For the most part, its been pretty open and honest about my thoughts here and how I'm adjusting. A lot of people have really reached out, responding to my posts with encouragement which I greatly appreciate. Recently though, a close friend of mine pointed out that she was interested in what my day looked like, which is always kind of funny to me because I don't really see my life as too interesting. I'm just like the couple other hundred dancers I follow on Instagram or the majority of my friends here but to others, they are blown away by the idea of my lifestyle or rather, my career. Remembering the goal of this blog and the request my friend had put in for viewing "a day in my life", I decided to spend a day, shall we say, documenting an average work day for Kayla. It's my hope that this post stays true to the open and honest theme I have started bu...
6 comments
Read more

Broken & Thankful

This week was a roller coaster and I'll be honest, I saw more downs that ups but looking back, even with my downs, I am thankful.  Let me start by saying, ballet started this  past Tuesday and I am overjoyed. Gone are the long mornings of waiting around, struggling to find things to do in my new city, instead I am doing what I love. I am back in the studio, learning, discovering, growing and most of all happy. This was the first "up" in my week this week and I plan to describe my classes more in a future blog post so stay tuned! After classes on Tuesday I had an interview or a job at Anthropologie. Some of my readers may or may not know that getting a job has been my biggest stress lately so this interview carried a lot of weight for me.  It went well and I was confident especially when I learned I was called back for a second interview on Thursday. But...Thursday was my breaking point. Between the soreness of my body, the mixed emotions of what this year coul...
3 comments
Read more

A Freeing New Reality

Sigh. That's how this blog post literally started for me. I turned off my music, sighed and started typing. I know that seems silly because hello I'm the author of this blog, I can write whatever I want, so why write something I have to "sigh" about? Well, part of me really wants to write this blog post. I've known since the beginning of April that this post was coming, I just didn't necessarily know when I would be able to write it. I didn't know because honestly, this one is a scary one for me. It's scary because, well, I'm going to be reallyyy vulnerable, reallyyy honest, and reallyyy trusting.  You see, I have flaws (shocker, right? ;) ). But seriously, I have many flaws. One of them is something I've been working on since high school, maybe even middle school. I care a lot, I mean a lot  about what others think of me. Part of me thinks it's good sometimes, I value community, being held accountable and people speaking into my life  ...
3 comments
Read more