In June of 2006, my father passed away. I was 41 years old and had just lost my father. I hugged my wife seeking comfort for my loss. Then I realized I felt no loss. I held her tighter and longer; nothing. I hugged my children; still nothing. I finally realized that losing my father started when I was 5 years old. It started with that first slap across my face that caused my nose to bleed and it ended, or so I thought, with his death in a hospital bed in Arizona. Between the ages of 5 and 41, I grew up physically and mentally, but was still immature emotionally. I spent many of those years haunted by the paranoia of becoming my father. I assumed that someday I would pass through some magical door or make some sort of anti-wish with a genie and wake up as my father. I questioned for years whether this similarity or that one meant I was becoming him. I finally realized that I was him; and I was me. I am my father in some ways, I have to be. His genes are in me and I spent the first 11 years of my life with him. His behavior and his genetics are affecting me. I am 5' 7" tall on a good day, have his green eyes, dark hair that is struggling to stay with me and have near-sightedness, just like he did. Physically I have taken on many of his traits without control over them. I just am part of him. Once I realized I was also part of him emotionally and behaviorally, I could then break through the paranoia of being him and allow myself to be me. I first had to realize that being me meant being him too. Discover the real you For most of my life it was easy for me to say how much I hated my dad. What I didn't realize was that those words and thoughts also pertained to me. If I hated him, I must also hate the part of me that is him. If I hate him I also hate me. It took a journey of identifying how much I really loved him before I could love me. I found my real purpose and my Authentic Self. It has been freeing and I can now overcome anything.