He's 6. We were driving back from getting ice cream, nothing special, just a regular Tuesday thing we do sometimes. He was in the back seat eating his cone and just goes "dad, you're my best friend." No context, no buildup, just said it like it was obvious.
I said something like "yeah buddy, you're mine too" and kept driving. Waited until I parked at home and just sat there for a minute. 34 years old, survived some genuinely rough stuff in my life, and a 6 year old with chocolate ice cream on his face almost broke me completely.
The thing is, I didn't have a great relationship with my own dad. Not terrible, but not close either. He was around, he provided, but we never really talked. I don't think he ever said anything like that to me, and honestly I'm not sure I would have known what to do with it if he had. So I've been kind of building this whole thing from scratch, trying to figure out what being a present dad even looks like without much of a template to work from.
And sometimes I genuinely don't know if I'm doing it right. Some days I'm too tired, I'm half-present, I'm staring at my phone when he's trying to show me something. I feel like I'm constantly running slightly below where I want to be. Then out of nowhere a Tuesday ice cream run turns into the best thing that's happened to me this year.
He's already moved on, probably forgot he said it five minutes later. Kids are like that. But I'm still thinking about it and I don't think that's going anywhere for a while.
Just wanted to share somewhere people would get it.