developing dad

My most honest and ugly self was in the notebooks. I filled them, both sides of the paper, handwriting so tiny that two lines of my script fit between the ruled lines on the paper. So small that the density of the books, weighed down with my anger and my hate, my self loathing and my aspirations would feel heavy to hold.

I’ve always presented well. I’m a well mannered sort. I’m a person who’s used the term ‘I’m sorry’ perhaps more than any person ever. I’m polite. I’m a door holder. I’m smart and I possess the decency that was instilled in me by my betters at an early age and I’m so happy that they did.

The me inside the notebooks was the opposite of what the world saw. I use the past tense because I’m older and time and my situation have conspired and left me rarely angry, mostly past the bitter resignation and largely living in the ‘acceptance of me for who I am’ phase of my life.

Inside those notebooks were my thoughts. I’d write them in and around the New York City I had moved to to disappear and become whoever it was I would become. I lived on St. Marks Place in Brooklyn on the top floor of a brownstone between 3rd and 4th. To the fourth was still a bit of plight at that time, but Park Slope’s sprawl has since reached my former block. To the 3rd was the Wyckoff projects. I come from a multicultural family of 9. While there are others that might have learned more from living there, I still learned a lot. It’s good for the perspective of white American men to live somewhere where they are an evident minority. Good for your understanding the daily lives of others. I worked at a group home (I am bound by my profession and my ethical adherence to correct myself and instead say, ‘community residence’, but I’ll leave group home as it is what I thought of it as at the time. Even though it was technically an ICF) on West 4th Street, park to the east and train station and the legendary West 4th Street courts (basketball) to the west. I wasn’t competetive anymore, but I remember being prideful enough at the time to insist I could have hung there. I couldn’t have, but perhaps I could’ve fooled em enough to get a run or two.

Anyway, I’d scrawl on trains and in libraries and bookstores and I’d put all my anger and all my hate at all the wrong people, into those books. I’d revile those I loved and I’d judge myself incessantly. I’d lash myself the hardest. A flagellant using tiny letters imbued with shame to properly cleanse my brain of my impurities. Or a raging rebel tipping over the towers with my pen. Whatever it was it was intense and scary and exhillerating and destroying me. I don’t really know how I got through that time sane. I’d finish each night drinking to black out. It was how I fell asleep for well over ten years. I couldn’t shut the rage without blacking out. I couldn’t silence whatever it was that lived in my head berating me without killing him nightly, drowning him. Drowning me at the same time.

I remember making an entry in the park. I don’t like writing with any distraction, but something was angering me and I needed to wrap up my well behaved, professional appearance and get somewhere quick before I exploded and that day and others it was Washington Square Park. The things I wrote were surely vile. Perhaps violent and most certainly unfair. They were honest. They were a me I had to be to get to the me I needed to become. I hated that me so much, and on some level knew that I needed to be aggreessive and out of control in my notebooks because I couldn’t be in the world. Those books contained awfulness. Awfulness I couldn’t avoid. I don’t know why and I may never know. There are still some roads to try walking down and I may find answers, but I had to be that person somewhere and thank god I had those books. I had no one else I could be that me with. I so hated that me that I’d put down my feelings and throw them out. Full books, hundreds of tiny words per page. I’d read something upon finishing from a few thousand words back and I’d recoil. I’d meticulously remove anything with my name on it or evidence of who the crazy was and throw that out at another trash can. I tried to throw away my pain and my anger.

I was so lonely. I was so in need of people I could trust. I was likely surrounded by them, but I couldn’t see it and it was so so lonely. There were times I’d try to get through a night without blacking out and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hide from me. I couldn’t get away from me and I needed to.

Friends who’ve tried to check me on the tiny details of that time, people who were there, who were completely unaware that I was having this experience. I suppose it makes sense. I’ve always played my part well. But the truth is that I assumed everyone in some way was experiencing this sad loneliness mixed with disappointment and discomfort in some way. I thought to some degree that was what it felt like to be human. Sad and lonely and human.

I’ve come a long way from those days. Largely because of the experiences of letting go of what I could, forgiving those I thought hurt me, forgiving myself and loving myself and most importantly liking myself. The last parts that made me able to feel connected I needed to do in therapy. Rather I was fortunate to speed them up a bit by having insurance that allowed me to get therapy.

Now I have my wife who is the hero of my story. She’s the only person, and others were close enough, but she was the only person that ever honestly and straightforwardly told me she was scared for me because of the drinking. Even working full time, before the kids I’d drink a six pack and a half a bottle of liquor cabinet sized liquor in an evening at home in front of the TV. It was a crutch but it was real and she cared. More importantly she said she cared and wanted me to stop. It’s not a big deal for me now. I get drunk once every couple years. And it’s a blast when it happens. There’s a day of rehydration, more like two now with age and being out of practice, but there’s no demons in those glasses.

My realest self used to hide in my notebooks and was dying from a lack of fresh air and sunlight and perspective. Now I write my story largely in real time and share it with the world unafraid. Well, if not unafraid at least unabashed. I have made real friends in facebook groups, other writers, bunker mates who are as real and as encouraging as any friends I’ve ever sat at a bar with. They encourage and plum depths. They aren’t afraid to hear and to share anything, they know that if someone is saying it, it’s real to them and needs to be listened to. We may not be ‘real life’ friends, but we pull for each other and cheer success and push each other and know that we can dare to be our real, scared, proud and vulnerable selves. That’s as real as it gets.

Writing that started as a true release of unwanted and unavoidable pain and has turned into a tool for empathy and connection. It’s transformed over time from harsh and critical to hopeful and aspirational. I’m truly a better person for having explored the depths and having passed that time. I know I’m never fully safe from anything. Tragedy and pain are real. I’m fortunate thus far and I’m thankful. Times will change and challenges will arise and when they do I’ll have a much fuller tool belt then I used to. I’ll have some love and empathy for me, which is something of far greater value then I could have ever imagined when it was lacking.

Parenthood is an expansive and truly magical experience that forces you to focus. Where your periscope was formerly up and constantly looking outward you now are forced to pull it in and train it on your new responsibilities. It requires everything you have to give and leaves you largely happy to give it, if occasionally annoyed that there isn’t more of it so you might retain a tiny piece for your own entertainment. It requires these things of you because its the most expedient way of alerting you that the life you knew, so much of it, is now a thing to remember and the life you will have is one that you can’t half-ass in the way you now realize you’d been half-assing it your whole life. The transformations leaves you with a changed perspective. A much narrower but much deeper one. You now swim in a thousand foot deep puddle that others can hop over. You are required to swim deep, find all the hidden realities and defend this puddle like it’s your life, your whole world.

Now, combine these traits with the traits of a writer. A person that is determined to express themselves, to show themselves, to be seen and to show off while often, typically being ultra sensitive to the world around them. A person that has learned through trial and failure that readers prefer their tales told with assurdness. A person already possessing a level of self-obsessed over-analysis so great that they have chosen to converse with the world, inside their head, for years on end. The combination can result in stretches of life defined by a solipsistic worldview that is practically a necessity for them to push through to the other side.

We deep sea dive in our oceanic puddles and are able to see things others would pass without noting, this is our gift. We revel in shining a light on these variations and we are so close to them we have little perspective. We are often surprised by the ways in which our experiences are reflective of others and equally surprised by the times they are singular and unique. Occasionally we see the surface of another parents puddle and assume it to be lacking in all the depth and nuance ours is, or even worse we can pass judgment on the parent as being less capable or curious about exploring their new world. I do it all the time. It’s a problem.

But today I’m taking a break from my standard, ‘this is parenthood’ form of expression in order to take a dip in some new puddles. Puddles of similarly afflicted people to see what life is like in the ocean they inhabit. For a moment I’m going to consciously stop, look around and remember that I can never be so blind as to think that my ‘this is parenthood’ understanding is a complete understanding. I have to occasionally take in the work of others and remind myself, ‘that is parenthood’ as well.

Over at the Precious Princess’s Guide to Bananaland … This piece speaks to a feeling I’d have never had the ability to really see due to my still resilient guilt complex. Kids are amazing, a point she makes rather pointedly and effectively. What else other then these little charges could possibly be worth it! I envy her voice. It’s completely uninhibited, something I’m incapable of being. Her bold and direct style is often balanced with really smart and biting humor!

The Misfits of a Mountain Mama is breaking the first rule of toddler fight club in this hysterical and hysterically accurate depiction of life with a toddler boy. This is my current situation (X2!), so perhaps I’m a perfect audience, but wow. Sounds a lot like a kid I know and love completely, while occasionally having other feelings mixed in.

Then there’s this piece over at Chock Full of Au-some. It’s a frankly terrifying little slice of life we can all relate to in one way or another, told with both humor and sentiment. Our version of this one is a tale of our first who we had no idea he had severe food allergies until we got a giant scare at just over a year old. That singular event changed the trajectory of him, our family, my career and so much more. Great observations by a great writer.

Then there’s this piece from the Punk Rock Papa himself. He’s a great dad and a great writer. This piece speaks to the true cacophony of chaos that the ‘parent-life’ is. It’s both evocative and provocative and like so much of what he writes, so well executed. Provocative is not just a decorative word choice. I actually was provoked by it, moved to argue with it and took to the internets and did so about half way through reading it. Now that’s a piece a writer can be proud of! Also, he may not be seeking out attention, but if he keeps up with what he’s doing, its going to find him.

It’s important for me to remember that when the opportunity presents itself I have to take a break from ‘THIS parenthood’  and take a dip in the rejuvenating waters of  ‘THAT Parenthood’ if only to feel instantly connected and understood, not to mention enlightened.

Gratitude is a practice. Many people think of it as an attribute or as a characteristic and I suppose that once the practice becomes ingrained it could become such a thing. But the truth is that the older you get, the more reason you have to give up the practice. Life is magical and it’s finite. So it stands to reason that one might lose sight of all that’s been given as the road ahead grows shorter and shorter and you pass quicker and quicker.

But it doesn’t take a lot of time to list 3 things you are thankful for. From there you can easily name ten more. After that you’ve learned that the silly rules you have for what you can put on such a list are meaningless and you can start to feel actual gratitude for water or air or grapes just as you do for your parents or your friends or your wife or your kids. Thankfully optimism born of gratitude, though harder to practice at times, has the same slippery slope effect as pessimism born of bitterness, but in reverse. The trick is to so ingrain the practice that it can’t disappear completely. So that you can go about listing all that is magical and worthy of gratitude even when your inclination is to sit in the dark. Darkness’ greatest tool is patience. You must provide equal tools to light. Even then, darkness can sneak in under the door.

My life is magically wonderful right now, but that didn’t stop a couple of blips over the weekend from knocking me down a bit. My gratitude muscles must be weakened at the moment. Thankfully the journey of writing here has provided me with a certain degree of fearlessness and has allowed me to be vulnerable in broad daylight. Turns out this amounts to something as it was this vulnerability that helped me regain my feet.

Yesterday I took to the internet the second I’d heard my exciting news I’d pretty much publicized to the world had fallen through. I’m not going to be in the book I was so proud to be in. It was going to be my first time being published. Turns out I fell short by one hurdle. I didn’t think I was bummed, I actually felt a bit of relief. It wasn’t my best work and it was not improved as much as I’d hoped through editing. But I found myself annoyed with the world. Frustrated and ungrateful.

Then I went back and read a post from a friend from my youth that she put up on facebook last night, presumably after reading my announcement. A person that was and apparently remains, always kind and thoughtful. She wrote this:

‘I’m really proud of you joey & love reading your work! Keep it up’

I should always be in good practice with gratitude. This time I wasn’t. Thankfully there was someone there to throw me a rope before I got to comfortable in the dark. Thank you!

Our Charlie is our first. With him we found our legs. When he came home from the hospital we were so over-awed by him, and so terrified of him stopping breathing, just randomly, because how could something so perfect KEEP breathing, that we took turns staying awake through the night just to watch his chest rise and fall as he slept. By the time Teddy came home we knew better. We just slept when he slept. Having two was new, but we knew a little better and we’d learned that the kid wasn’t going to stop breathing.

It’s so hard to describe how uninformed and how incompetent we felt with Charlie. We still do a lot of the time. Everything, every change he manifests or attacks is a new phase not just for him, but for us as well. I mean, he’s going to go to school some day, and while it won’t feel EXACTLY like it did when we felt like we were stealing a baby on our way out of the hospital that first time, it also won’t feel exactly unlike that either the first time we leave him there. He’s at the tip of the spear and as his journey proceeds he’s leading us to new places we’re often less comfortable in then he is. It’s quite a burden first kids have. Each of his firsts reminds us that we’ll be new parents until we die and we’ll never have direct experience to draw on with him. We look for guideposts and berate ourselves if we feel like we’ve failed him. With the second we are not at all fussed with the exact same guideposts. Sure, we bemoan that he still uses his binkie, but we know it’ll disappear sometime before or after college. Either one would be fine. Whereas with Charlie, we had strategies and planning and misguided attempts.

When Charlie confronts a new issue we worry and fret and do stupid things because it’s all new to us and we worry we are failing him if we don’t do these things. Turns out almost every time we’re not and in fact I’d be willing to bet that our fretting and planning and trying and failing do more harm then good. For example, right now he’s obsessed with his body, if you know what I mean, and has recently developed a fear of pooping. So we’re talking to teachers and talking to him and getting in power struggles and redirecting constantly and giving hour long baths in hopes of loosening bowels. We see something we don’t want to see or don’t know how to approach and we immediately develop a plan to ‘consciously uncouple’ him from a behavior. It fails. We try something new. Fails again. We repeat this for as long as it takes for him to stop doing it then we think we had some big role in it.

I’m starting to think we might be all wrong on this one. Perhaps our best move would be to simply allow things to ‘naturally uncouple, thoughtlessly’.

At the risk of sounding too folksy and ‘homespun’, is it all this thinking that’s getting in the way? Are they not designed to endure inept and incapable but very loving parents? Is it possible that the ‘information age’ has put too much knowledge in the hands of new parents and robbed them of the ability to acquire knowledge in a way that time has perfected?

I’m probably over thinking.

Parenting.

Define that for me, will you? Not in the way of saying the act of being a parent. Flesh it out a bit. What follows is a short, top of my head list of duties I’m responsible for while ‘parenting’. I’m a chauffeur, a protector, a nurturer, a planner, a logistics expert, a ground level risk management consultant, an entertainer, a teacher, a shopper, a cooker, a soother, a first responder, a triage nurse, an entertainment director and judge, jury and punisher. I’m the creator of bad habits and the breaker of them. I’m a liquidity manager, decision maker, emotional support and an overnight on-call residential staff. I’m a cleaner and a problem solver. I explain the answer to every hard question that occurs in my presence. Thankfully I share all of these duties with an amazing coworker. I frankly find the concept of me being engaged in ‘parenting’ to be reductive. All of the roles I’ve listed and a thousand more are subsumed in my title. I’m a noun. I’m a parent. Specifically, in my case, I’m a dad.

My mother told me that one of her friends, a woman with children older then hers, told her that you can’t really know who your kids will be until they’re 40. Speaking as someone that’s 41, I find this measure to be both fair and accurate. As her son who’s only just recently crossed that threshold I should note that this doesn’t mean the job is over for her. Not by a long shot. For example, in the 30 or so years since my voice started to crack I’ve broken down in tears discussing hard topics with my mom only a handful of times. Maybe 3 times total. I’m an emotional and occasionally melancholy man, which would explain this exorbitant number. One of those times was in the last few months. While I was 41. Her job is clearly not done in my case, I’m what could be described as fairly highly functioning. By the way, what she did when I cried with her was counsel me with love and thoughtfulness. She was not at all engaged in something so dismissible as ‘parenting’. She was guiding and walking and ultimately crying with me so we could get to a place together.

That’s the danger of the verb-ing of the word parent. It gives the sense that it is an act that one can take in somehow. That there is a beginning (there is) a middle (sorta) and an end (no way). And even if you were to choose to construct it as such, a thing you could do reasonably, it is an act that is of a scale that defies perception. The only person that will have a reasonable perception of me as a parent is my wife. And even that will be colored by access and coincidence, schedules and circumstance. Not to mention opinion and bias. All the same issues will shade my perception of her experience as a parent. But the reality is that parent’s have bad moments. Thousands of them. They have to. They’re carrying a weight that’s too much and at times throughout the process they will get it wrong. I have already more times than I like to think, but I think as many times as anyone else working at it honestly. It’s okay, though. Because I’m not ‘parenting’. I’m not engaged in an act, with a start and a finish that are defined at the outset and that can result in success or failure. Well, I am, but it’s not today or tomorrow or next week. It’s a thing of a lifetime. Its the work of a lifetime.

Parenting also suggests a far more active role than I fear is prudent. Kids have far too much to do these days and are not left to their own devices nearly enough. (I dropped my career to go work where I could take them with me and have them in classes, so it’s possible that I’m not the best vehicle for this message. But that’s for another post.) The days of riding your bike aimlessly and endlessly around neighborhood streets, as I did when I was 10, for hours on end may be gone. That’s a shame . I suspect their is going to be an increased value to having the ability to self-direct in the future since so many parents are parenting so… vigorously. I’ve recently heard of some backlash to this trend and I’m delighted.  I long for a time when dad is a passive presence for hours on end, oblivious as they chase their curiosities and explore the world around them, secure in the knowledge that if they really need me, I’m there to help.

I try to wear the title of dad like a shirt, but it’s creeped into my cellular makeup at this point. I don’t look to be validated. I’m a dad. I AM a dad. I’m not ‘dadding’. Dad is a fully absorbed part of my being and the part of it that is in flux, the portion that is ever learning and ever growing is also ever messing up. That’s okay. It’s part of the process. As is realizing that your kids are a bit more unbreakable then you fear.

Simply being a parent is a far more sane way for me to approach the task. A task in which ultimately I’m not the player that is to be reacted to. I’m the reactor. My kids are the ones actively involved in growing up. It’s a lot of damn work on my part, to be sure. But they’re the ones doing the work of discovering a world. I’m delighted to be dad, along for the ride for so much of it. I’m lighting the path and advising and hopefully keeping them looking in the right directions in order to get the best view of all this magic.

.

Kids break you. Convinced of your invincibility and imbued with the quiet confidence you have that all the voices saying it changes everything were just the subtle sounds of lesser mortals struggling through that which you will navigate better, you go forth and multiply. Then you are in bliss. Then all hell breaks loose. You are in the eye of the storm, and its destructive power only amplifies it’s epic beauty. You are broken. Like a wild stallion finally being ridden, you are completely under the control of your miniscule master. Before long he takes an  apprentice. One whose natural tendencies to rule all that he surveys are even stronger. Before long you are melted and ready to be poured into the crucible that is designed by the needs of your overseers who act without care for your opinions or your druthers. If you are not yet ready to be poured into the mold of the life that you will lead that is no bother to them. They simply turn up the heat evermore until you are suitably pliable. They do this by nature, whose design they are bound to follow.

Some day you will wake up and discover a remnant from a former life. Perhaps it’s coins from a faraway land or a ticket stub to a Phish concert or that t-shirt you caught from the t-shirt gun at the ballgame. Or perhaps your high tops you bought because you’d always played basketball and always needed a pair, but they are still in perfect, fresh out of the box condition. Could be as simple as a lighter. Slowly you will realize that the memories these items bring to mind, if any, are of a person that looks a little like you and it definitely happened, but you can’t relate to that person anymore. The memories are fading at the edges and you suspect that each time they spring up from now til the end they will be slightly more fuzzy. Some will disappear. Some must have done so already.

These changes are certainly the evidence of the transformation you’ve gone through in the course of becoming a parent to someone. Much of the change is lamentable because life is wonderful and it ends and this is more evidence that you have traveled more of that road than you wish. But the other thing you notice is that you are happy on this stretch of road. You feel like this is the most meaningful and purposeful stretch you’ll travel. The defining portion of the journey and your grateful to be here. When you take stock of where you are you realize, at least I have, that I’m utterly thankful to my kids for forcing me to grow up. Forcing me to change. The changes they’ve prompted in me are all for the better.

These are the 5 aspects of me that have been formed by my kids that are most important to me at this moment, but don’t ever think this list is complete. Were you to ask me tomorrow I could come up with a different and equally impactful list. But for now, these are the things I’ve learned from raising my sons to this point that I’m eternally grateful for…

1. Failure isn’t final- My kids are growing from little bowls of jelly into fully functioning little people capable of everything from pooping on the potty to planning and executing plots of deviousness that put to shame that which I could ever pull off. In the course of doing so they are prone to encounter failure. Repeatedly. Yet, they never EVER give up. In doing this they have put me to the test as well, and it turns out I learn more from doing the wrong thing then I ever do when I get it right. Failure makes me better, a concept I lost sight of as a free floating adult. But now that I’m tethered to these little loves I’m bound to fail and persist for as long as I can imagine. It’s very exciting to know defeat is a starters gun and not a finish line.
2. Truly unconditional love-  Its a romantic notion that we are taught to think is what we are looking for in a mate. And for it’s purpose of helping us understand love, its good. But it isn’t real. Also, it shouldn’t be. Unconditionally loving anyone other than your kids and your parents, if you are lucky as I am, is a myth or it’s a problem. I love my wife fully, romantically, practically and perpetually. She is the love of my life. But unconditionally is dangerous. But your kids, there’s no thought or deciphering needed. It’s truly a feeling, beyond the ability of words to explain, and it’s awesome.
3. How to Cry- It’s not a thing guys do all that much. Perhaps at funerals, but as a young man not even then. Then you get older and perhaps a movie might touch a nerve for you. For me it’s the movie ‘Glory’. Gets me literally every time. But now, with the kids (not to mention I’m an old dad and i suspect I have a vastly diminishing store of testosterone) I’m able to access depths of emotions, even if I still don’t really understand them, that I never could reach before. Now, I can cry just from feeling ’emotional’. It’s something I would have dreaded before. Turns out it makes me feel more connected. It feels great.
4. How to know my own parents more deeply- Are you kidding me!? My parents had six kids. SIX KIDS! I’m barely treading water with two. Two great ones I might add. How did I spend my twenties you ask? Whining and moaning about the lack of attention us middle kids got. I can’t believe how much I couldn’t see of all they did for me until I was in this position. Now I can’t find enough microphones to express to the world how amazing my life is because I was blessed with two such wonderful, generous, kind, warm, smart and funny parents as mine. Had I not had kids I’d have never understood this. At least not until it was too late.
5. How to stop worrying and live for the moment- People can get real crazy in the middle section of life. There’s pressure from all directions in regard to all things; family, finances, work. It can make you freeze up if you have a moment to think. But whenever it gets to be too much, all I have to do is have some time with the kiddos. They are magically able to remove all worries about all that isn’t right there in front of them, and this trait is remarkably contagious.

For these and many more reasons I find myself forever indebted to these tiny dictators that first went about breaking me only to build a better stronger version. Or maybe this is all a very simple version of the Stockholm Syndrome.