And I thought: Oh. There it is. Entry #315.
I kissed his forehead. He stirred, mumbled, “Love you, kid.”
The crush peaked the summer I was sixteen. We drove to the lake, just the two of us, after Mom took my sister to flute camp. I remember watching him navigate the boat onto the trailer—backing the truck down the ramp with one hand on the wheel, the other draped over the passenger seat, turning his head to look behind him. The sun caught the gray at his temples. He was just backing up a trailer , but to me, it was a masterclass in competence.
Later, we floated in the middle of the water, treading gently. He told me about the first time he held me—how I fit in the palm of his hand like a little burrito, how he was terrified he’d drop me. I laughed and splashed him. He splashed back. 315. Dad Crush
Let me be clear: this isn’t that kind of story. There’s no Freudian punchline, no scandal. It’s something quieter, and in its own way, more devastating.
He had softer hands now. More gray. Slower to get up from the floor after playing with the dog.
The Dad Crush never really goes away. It just changes shape. It becomes less about idolizing him and more about forgiving him. Less about wanting him to be perfect, and more about being grateful that he stayed—hammer in hand, flannel soft, ready to guide one more swing. And I thought: Oh
And I crushed, just a little, all over again.
The crush faded, as crushes do. By seventeen, I was annoyed by his dad jokes. By eighteen, I was embarrassed by his old sneakers. By twenty, I was gone to college, calling home once a week, keeping him on speaker while I scrolled my phone.
And in that moment, I felt it: the crush. Not as desire. Not as romance. But as a kind of gravitational pull. The realization that this man—flawed, tired, sometimes grumpy, always trying—had built a world inside of me before I even had words for it. I kissed his forehead
But last Christmas, I came home late. He was asleep on the couch, the TV murmuring an old Western, his reading glasses still on his face. I pulled the blanket up to his chin, and for a second, I just looked at him.
I didn’t have a crush on a pop star. I didn’t tape magazine cutouts of actors to my bedroom wall. My first real, heart-squeezing, stomach-dropping crush was on the man who packed my school lunches and knew the exact way I liked my grilled cheese—diagonal cut, slightly burnt on the edges.