As most of you might know, I was adopted. But not like your typical adopted. I still had my birth mom, but my stepdad adopted me.

My mom had me really young and things were not as cookie cutter perfect as most people believe your life should be when you have a child. She raised me by herself with the help of my grandparents for the first few years of my life. I honestly had a great life and I loved the people in it.

One day, she met a man named Brett, who I did not know at the time would one day become the man I call dad. I can not imagine taking someone else's child that you barely know and just treating them as your own after the first couple times of meeting and knowing the person. But he did. He treated me as one of his own, with no differentiation between me and my older brother, who was his son.

I honestly don't remember when I started calling him dad, but I feel like I always did, because he was the father figure I had around from when I was young. I grew up with him as my dad, so he IS my dad.

I remember in high school when my parents asked me if I wanted to be adopted. Initially, I was not sure what that meant, and I was confused because I knew I was basically his child anyways. But after we talked about it I knew that I wanted to go through with it. I mean like I said, I was already my dad's kid anyways and we all knew that, so why not just make it official and put it on a piece of paper.

So, I got adopted by my stepdad. He has been the dad around for me for as long as I can remember. I can honestly say, not once have I ever felt different than my two brothers who are his biological children. I have never felt like I do not belong or out of place. Things just seemed to fit in a way that my mom and I could never have thought possible.

Dad, thanks for loving me and taking me as your own. It means a lot to me that someone who barely knew me or even mom at the time decided to treat me as your own. Yes, we have had our fair share of fights over the years, but there is nobody else that I would like to laugh with about how mom is in one of her moods again. Thanks for supporting me and loving me as your own. Honestly, though, I think you lucked out with me because you tell me all the time that I am your only hope. So if I must say, you picked a good one. But don't worry, I won't let you down. Thanks for always being there. There is nobody else I would want as my dad, and, more importantly, there is nobody else I would want to walk me down the aisle one day when I get married. Love you, Dad.