written across my face

This isn’t exactly a new topic, but it strikes me once in awhile that heredity is a funny thing. I don’t look like my father, not at all, really. I get my dark hair and eyes from him, but those things aside, when it comes to appearance, I am clearly my mother’s daughter. Same height, same shape, same features. This is why it always surprises me when I catch a glimpse of myself and I see an expression on my face that comes straight from my father. Such as the one above. That squinty smile? That’s him.

There’s some part of me that thinks I should have more to say about this, that I should write something about my relationship (or, as would be more accurate, the lack thereof) with my father, but I’ve written about it before. Somewhere. I’ve written a lot of things in a lot of places, and at this point I can’t remember what I wrote where. That aside, I don’t need to write about it anyway. There was a time when it was sharply painful, the fact that he and I would never be close, but I’m past that now, in a different place, one where I know that this is how it is and that’s okay. In another life, maybe, he and I would get past our differences enough to be something to each other, but since I don’t believe in other lives I’m not concerned. In this life, we love each other in our own way, from a distance, and just when I feel like there’s nothing of mine that is his, all I need is to look at my own face for proof that we are the same.