“I want to come home,” I told my mom over the phone. It was my first night on my brother and I’s trip with our dad. Since the trip started, I had a weird feeling about everything. I had always known that my dad had issues but the past couple of months with him had been improving from his old habits of drug and alcohol usage, and the time we spent at his house with him wasn’t great but not bad either. Me and my brother started staying at my dad's house two nights a week again, and it seemed like he was turning his life around. This is what I thought before the trip started but my whole perspective changed by the time I got back to the safety of my mom's house. 

Most of my dad's side of the family lives in Illinois and I had always been super busy my whole life with soccer, dance, and school. So I never got a chance to meet anyone. One day I found out that my dad's family was having a get-together. He wanted my brother and I to come with him since we had never met any of those family members. My mom was hesitant but agreed for us to go along with him and his girlfriend. Days before the trip, I was excited to meet family I have never met before. Then my excitement changed right from the moment my dad picked us up from our mom's house. I had a weird feeling deep down right after we left. He had been two hours late to pick me and my brother up and wanted to drive at night instead of during the day. When we got in the car he was already angry. I planned to sleep until we got there to avoid getting yelled at. 

When we were around an hour into the drive I struggled to fall asleep due to the blaring music and smoke in the car. I knew my dad had smoked and vaped before so I wasn't surprised when he was doing it in the car. I rolled my window down to escape the clouds of smoke in the car. My dad started yelling at me about rolling my window down which woke my younger brother. My dad locked the windows so me and my brother were stuck in the stench and cloudy air. From then on I knew it would be a long trip. It was now around 7 am and we had been in the car for 9 hours, the rest of the ride was quiet because no one wanted to talk. Especially when my dad was in a bad mood. 

When we got to my aunt's house around 8 am, my dad introduced us to my three aunts and cousins. We ate breakfast with them and everything seemed normal. Around 10 am when my dad and his girlfriend left, leaving me and my brother with people we only met a few hours ago. They didn't come back to get us until around 2 pm when my dad's girlfriend Dana, took me and my brother to our Airbnb. My dad stayed at my aunt’s when we went to our Airbnb. Later that night we returned to my aunt's house to eat dinner. I could tell all of my aunts and my dad had been drinking a lot. Dinner was loud and my dad was being obnoxious which made me uncomfortable. It had been a few hours and the problem just kept getting worse.  I went to the guest bedroom no one was in and called my mom telling her how much I wanted to come home and everything that was happening. 

Over the next few days, nothing that my dad did stood out other than his over-drinking and acting careless which had been normal for me to experience coming from him. When it was time to leave my dad drove for around 30 minutes then made Dana drive the rest of the 8 and a half hours home. My dad was on and off sleeping the whole drive. He would only wake up when we stopped somewhere which led me to wonder what he had been doing before we left that made him so tired. When we stopped my dad would go to the bathroom and stop to smoke a cigarette outside the car. He then would come back in the car and yell at me and my brother because we were stopping too much even though we had no say in whether we stopped. After this stop, I started to realize something was wrong with him. As I thought, I realized I don't ever want to let my kids see me like that. My dad stayed awake after we stopped for food one time so he could tell Dana to stop at a cannabis dispensary store on the way home, which we did. I tried not to think about what he was getting so I wouldn't worry about him. I tried not to worry because I knew I shouldn't have to be worrying about my dad but once he came back the worry just took over. 

For the rest of the drive home, my dad was not awake for much of it. As he slept longer and longer it just got more concerning to me, as my dad had been sleeping for the whole drive and he had a whole night's sleep the night before. As Dana was driving and my dad sleeping in the front seat, I just couldn't stop thinking about what my dad was getting himself into. I had to help Dana with the directions because my dad wouldn't even wake up to help her while she was driving. I could tell he was stressing out his girlfriend and not only me. While helping Dana I started thinking and I began comparing myself to him as a parent and realized I never want to be like him and how he is right now. I want my kids to have a parent who spends time with them and worries about them instead of my child having to worry about me. When I arrived home, I messaged my dad a big paragraph telling him how I felt and about how he was scaring me. He never ended up responding to my message. 

This trip was a few months ago and looking back I remember my mom being hesitant to let us go and now I wish she never did. I have had a lot of time to think about his actions and reflect on how I really feel about being around him when he's being so careless. The trip I went on with my dad made me envision myself as a parent and sibling. After seeing my dad be so careless with himself and not thinking about if he's hurting his family, it really made me think about what  I don’t want to do as a parent. I never want my kids to have to worry about me the same way I worried about my dad. After the trip, my dad reached out a few times over text but me and my brother stopped seeing him in person. I haven't decided if I think this is for the better but this terrible experience taught me how I should act if I ever become a parent. My dad has taught me many life lessons, but hardly any of them are good. From my experiences I have realized that I never want to hurt my kids like he hurt me.