"A daughter needs a loving, available, predictable father or father figure who can be counted on, whether divorced or at home. She needs his best paternal intentions, even if his efforts occasionally fall short. She needs his maturity and limit setting and sexual oppositeness, so that she can function with confidence in the wider world of adult love and work."

Sometimes, I look at other people and see how much they make their family proud. Then I look at myself and wonder if I make my family feel the same.

The most important thing in the world for me is to make my family proud, especially my dad. I hate myself so much whenever I do something that wouldn’t put a smile to his face. For example, when I got my university results I cried for hours when I found out my score wasn’t what I needed for the course that I wanted. I was so scared to tell my dad the score because I didn’t want him to be disappointed. I still remember the feeling I get when I got his phone call… my heart dropped- in the next few moments I was going to hear a lot of disappointment in his voice, even if he didn’t want to show it. This was, honestly, one of the hardest moments of my life.

Later, I found out that the score I was told was my original score- my score without bonus points. When I found out my score with bonus points I was super excited… I got into the course that I wanted the most! The first, and only thing that I wanted to do was tell my dad, I just knew he’d finally be proud of me! And he was, he helped me organise everything that I needed to so that I could defer for this year and I got everything done that I needed to.

Then came leaving home to come to Austria. This moment was even harder for me, even though I knew it wasn't a disappointment to him. I know, the 21st January 2012 was one of the hardest days for both of us- he was letting his little girl fly to the other side of the world to live and I was finally leaving home. All I can remember of saying goodbye to him was holding him and never wanting to let him go.. but I had to, it's all part of the experience.

Later on, in late February, I found a letter that my dad had sent over with me. The letter told me a lot of the things that he’s been the most proud of me for over my life. I never realised how much I did to make him proud of me, and mostly it was the simple things. I’ve always tried so hard to make my dad happy and I never took the time to notice that he was proud of me no matter what.

My dad loves me, and I love him… I love him more than I could even try to explain. But I hate that it took me travelling half way across the world to realise it.

Daddy, I know now that you’re proud of me and I’m so glad about that. I know that you’d be proud of me no matter what I do, but I’m always going to do my best to make you proud to say, “That’s my daughter.” I love you, with all of my heart, no matter what happens. <3

It's not hard to be a father but it takes a lot of courage to be a daddy and this man is the best daddy I could've ever asked for! <3