May 27, 2009

A Compliment I’m Taking

My Dad isn't exactly the best at compliments. Like on my wedding day for example, he said to me, "I didn't know you could look that beautiful." Hmm, that got me to thinking a bit. It was sort of a back-handed compliment, but considering my compliment history with my Dad, whatever. I'll take it.

He also says things like this: "Boy, you look nice in that shirt, but your arms are really moley." Freaking fantastic. I spent an entire 4th grade night at Disney World begging my Mom to buy me a sweatshirt so I could cover up my arms and avoid making people run in horror from my chocolate chipped arms. When he said I was being ridiculous about it, I just crossed my arms and used my hands to cover up as much of my arms as possible. I'm like that in every picture my Dad took that night. It was one of those nights that scarred me for the teenage years, but he still says I'm too dramatic about it.

He's also not very good at apologizing. Truth be told, I'm not either. But my Dad's apologies tend to go something like this: "I'm sorry I told you that your arms are moley. . . but your arms are moley." They never quite feel like apologies.

That's why what happened tonight came as a total shocker.

Tonight my Dad came into the dojo to watch Big I during her ju-jutsu class and, more importantly, to keep an eye on Lil C while I trained upstairs with Ax Kick-Eric. At one point he came upstairs while Ax-Kick-Eric and I were working on some open hand bunkai. I heard Lil C saying she wanted to stand closer to Mommy and I heard my Dad say, "This is the closest we're going to get." I was busy at the time, trying to make a throw work on Ax-Kick-Eric.

After we were finished doing that, I showed my Dad my kobudo bunkai. When I was finished he said to Lil C, "That's why you better behave when you get to dating age." I laughed and said, "Why do you think I train so hard?"

Soon though, I could tell my Dad was ready to go home so I packed it up and he said goodbye to the girls. He didn't wait for me to walk out, so I just figured he'd go home and make fun of me or tell my Mom how silly karate was; because over the past few years, I've felt an undertone of him not quite understanding why I was so into the martial arts.

Then I got a phone call from my Mom. "Your Dad says you look like a black belt!" she said. I had to pick my jaw off the floor to ask her to say that again. I heard right and there wasn't even any extra commentary like "for a girl with moley arms" or anything. "Yeah," she said, "he said 'Wow, BBM is really good at karate. She looks like a black belt."

Total shocker, but that is one compliment I'm going to gladly take, keep, and remember always.