I spent my entire life running after my dad's approval. Now I'm reclaiming myself while letting go of him.

• Growing up, I tried really hard to please my father with everything I did.
• I applied to law school because he thought I'd be a good lawyer but backed out at the last minute.

The day after my daughter's baby-naming ceremony, where we bestowed on her the Jewish name Bracha, after a relative who had survived the Holocaust, my father called me. With little preamble, he raised his voice. "You caused a family rift that will never be repaired! How could you have done this? Why are you so selfish?" he demanded.

Stunned, I slumped on my kitchen floor. What had I done? Unbeknownst to me, my stepsister's Hebrew name was also Bracha, and Judaism forbids naming a child after a living person.

But I barely knew her and certainly had not named my daughter after her. My heart was racing, and I called my rabbi. "You've done nothing wrong," he reassured me. Still, my father wouldn't return my calls.

Growing up, I always wanted to please my father

When I was little, I pretended my father's bald head was an egg that I could crack. Climbing into his lap, I bunched my fist and knocked on his head, tracing the imaginary yolk with my hands as it oozed over his forehead and chest. His playful, disgusted face made me laugh uproariously.

But as I grew bigger, I no longer fit in his lap and the game grew stale. So I scrambled to find other ways to keep his interest in me alive. "Are you sure that's what you want?" my mother asked when I requested an encyclopedia set for my 8th birthday. It was my father's raised eyebrows and gratified smile that I really wanted.

He liked that I was good with language, so I signed up for spelling bees, running words with him for hours. I successfully hid from him the fact that I got so nervous before taking the stage that I threw up almost every time.

I signed up for extra credit in physics so he could help me build a catapult. I was aware of how often he chose to spend time with me over my mother or brother, but I didn't care — pleasing my father became the goalpost of my identity.

Being atop a pedestal, however, can be precarious. Not only does it require a constant — and maddeningly addictive — scramble to remain in place, but it can take a heavy toll on other relationships. My mother's understandable jealousy opened a chilly distance between us. Even my brother, whom I was close to, often resented me.

But things changed

Over the years, my special bond with my father began to fray.

He thought I would be a good lawyer, so I dutifully applied to law school. At the last minute, though, I decided not to go, which he took as a personal affront. His interest in me began to wane. After that, an awkward formality crept into our conversations.

It became clear that he did not know me very well, and in the light of that revelation, another, more disturbing one followed: I didn't know myself. I had spent so much time running after his approval that I hadn't asked myself who I wanted to be.

Then my baby's name precipitated my fall from the pedestal entirely. The landing was heavy. I felt that familiar sticky shame trickling over me, like that imaginary egg yolk in our old game.

This Father's Day, I'll mourn the loss of the father I thought I had. But maybe I'm also ready to forgive myself for cleaving so tightly to the story I held about us, brittle in its dishonesty, naked in its yearning.

I've found that one of the hardest things about parenting is knowing when to let go of what isn't possible. It is also what is hardest about letting go of a parent.