Years before having unicorns become my thing, I knew two little dinosaur girls. They watched the usual kid movies at the time. Somewhere along the line it became the Jurassic Park movies. They loved ’em! Would walk around like dinosaurs hunting.

A friend recently sent me a picture of a tattoo of a unicorn and t-rex hugging. I thought of them then. Then I saw a video of a brother and sister acting like dinosaurs on a dinosaur themed water ride. The memories really rushed back.

They weren’t my daughters, though I often wished they were. I wasn’t even dating their mother. For a while in the beginning, it seemed like we would. Never happened. For several years I was around almost every weekend. I won’t even get into the dysfunctional mess that was. That I allowed myself to put myself through.

I remember one day napping with the youngest. I was just laying there with her because she refused to nap alone that day. She was curled up to me, head on my chest. She briefly woke up, looked at me smiled and said, da da, then snuggled back in and napped again. I started crying, brushed her hair and said I wish honey.

I remember on occasion when I’d be going to work, and they’d each grab a leg and cry no you can’t go. I remember one father’s day, I pulled up and they and one of the older neighbor teens come running to give me hugs and yell happy fathers day to me. I got told I was the neighborhood dad. There were quite a few single mothers on that block.

I remember writing letters from Santa at Christmas to them and addressing most of the gifts I gave em from Santa.

I won’t claim I always reacted the best when they misbehaved. Oh did I love em though. Still do, even though I haven’t seen either in maybe 13-14 years.

What’s the point of this post, that I cried through a good portion of writing? Even though we end up in some shit situations we wish hadn’t happened, most of the time, there are amazing memories to come from it. Hold on to those and let the bad mean next to nothing.

At the time I wouldn’t admit it, they were the only reason I kept going back there. It certainly wasn’t because of the mother. It tore me up for a long time not to have those girls in my life.

For a couple reasons I will likely get that T-rex and Unicorn tattoo on a calf. Amidst a nebula and stars going around my shin, with other little items mixed in to remind me of other memories with family and friends.

Keep shining bright everyone.