"When I talk about love to my father I feel like I’m 14 years old again, trying to convince him..."

“When I talk about love to my father I feel like I’m 14 years old again, trying to convince him that I know what I want and that my heart will always belong to him. Today I am 22 years old and now I understand why he always wanted me to wait, wait and wait some more. I’m sitting on the arm of the chair and he’s on the couch, watching the playoffs and asking me if I mean it this time. That if this is really what I think to be love, will I still believe in it in another 8 years? But this time, I do. This time I know it's authentic. He asks me what love is and this time I do not describe a feeling or a thought or a scene from a film, but his name. Always his name. My father takes another sip of coffee, it’s almost 11 p.m. and I don’t know how he goes to sleep with all that cream and sugar, and he asks me if he will be enough for me. He asks me if the man who wields my heart will only keep it safe and not give it back when times become too tough for him to handle, and when my heart becomes too heavy for him to hold. This time I say yes. When I was 14 I had to take a moment to think about this question that my father had always asked me whenever we discussed love in the family room, and now I am 22 and I know that there hasn’t been many years that have passed since then but this time, I can say yes and not look back at the past and wonder if it’s true. This time I can say his name and it be enough for my father to believe.”

- “When my father and I talk about love, I feel like I’m 14 again,” - Colleen Brown