3:00 a.m.

It was 3:00 a.m. when she said, "Maybe you could make my dad care about me."

Two sentences later, "it's complicated."

Four sentences later, "I miss God."

3:00 A.M is a truth serum.

My day was just beginning while the rest of the world slept.  And it began that day with her words.  And I thought about them until sunrise.

I suppose I could relate.

I suppose at the root of my anger lies my contempt for my own dad but the difference is I never knew him.  It wouldn't have softened her view.  It wouldn't have changed her perspective.  It would have meant nothing because 3:00 am is a truth serum.

I had just finished a long night of reminiscing.  A long night of looking at familiar names and unrecognizable faces.  People from grade school, high school, church, drinking buddies, and past crushes.

Everyone that night was simply someone I used to know.

The one thing I like about facebook is its just a yearbook.  Strip away the family portraits, the Norman Rockwell perceptions, the smiling dogs and clumsy children.  Strip it all away and this place is just a yearbook comprised of everyone we ever knew.


It was 3:00 am.  The exact hour no one ever lies.

Her and I, close in age with similar failures.  The same love of language.  Words.  An addiction to creativity.  An obsession with our own limitations.  Her and I, close in experiences with similar ghosts.  The same hatred for the myopic.  A loathing of the insincere.   Her and I, drinking from the same vial of serum at 3:00 a.m."

Maybe you can make my dad care about me".

And then it was my turn.   

"Maybe he never will".

I think we all know one song we all personally wish we had written.  An unoriginal thought worded in an original way by someone else.

I have such a song.  A recent one.  A song I could have written at 9 months old.  The day my dad left and never looked back.

Three months after he died, I learned of his death.  I cried as if he was the father all the others have.  His obituary didn't mention me.  I didn't recognize his face.  I didn't know him from a stranger.  He wasn't even someone I used to know.

That night at 3:00 a.m., her plea was honest.  Heartfelt.  Vulnerable.  And remarkable in its depth.

I could relate at that exact hour.

Rob Thomas sang, "it's 3:00, I must be lonely".  I suppose its because its the hour no one ever lies.

I wanted to lie to her, tell her all fathers care.
I wanted to use her vivid imagination to expand the possibility that perception is rarely the truth.

I wanted her to just go to sleep for one more hour.

Great friendships are formed in the middle of the night.  Great truths are shared and great loves are realized.

I bet if she just woke her dad up at 3:00 a.m., while the rest of the world sleeps, she would learn she is wrong about him.