My dad and my stepmom are on their way over. They’re in town from Florida. It’s their first visit to my rented townhouse, to my post-4,000 sq. ft. cul-de-sac life.

I am cleaning like a banshee. It won’t be good enough. They’ll see the spots that I’ve missed. Nit pick. Criticize.

I now recognize that this frenzied feeling in my chest, this churning in my gut, has a name: anxiety. I am anxious for my Daddy to see the place where his baby girl lives. The place that he, when I first moved in, asked, “Is it infested?” Last month he asked, “Do you have good heat?” His questions reflecting his anxiety that I am at risk; unsafe.

I am 53. I am fine.

I love my new home, familiar tzchotkes and photographs on the table tops collected from a lifetime of travels and gifts from beloved friends, my guitars hanging on the wall, folk music wafting in from the kitchen Bose speaker a client gave me for Christmas.

I am barking at my daughter, “Make your bed. Clean up your room.” I am teaching her to be anxious. This is *not* the family tradition I want to pass onto her.

I want to breath. Relax my shoulders. Feel confident in my choices: to leave my too-big lonely home, my too-small lonely marriage.

I am making my own way. My own living.

My father is coming. He’s old now. Every visit, potentially the last. He’ll see the dirt on the floor. The dishes drying next to the sink. Hopefully he’ll also see me.  I do.