What is passing for ‘what I know’ today is that it’s pretty easy for small, practically imperceptible doubts that reside in the far reaches of my memory and dark corners of my conscience, upon finding one another, to amplify their small voices to such a degree that they can drown out all that confidence and self assuredness I’ve been gathering over the years. Doubt gathers in the dark and waits. It plans and attacks under the cover of propulsion, hidden by my aloof optimism and neverending schedule. But it can pounce.
There’s nothing in particular to note. Nothing I’ll signify here, and what my specific doubts are misses the point. Which for me is that more than anything I’m so grateful to my kids because they center me like nothing else. Like I guess my parents did when I was 5. In a way that is so massive and consequential in my life it’s a very good thing that they don’t have any clue that they carry this weight for me. They carry in them the ability for me to continue, never folding and never quitting. They are inspiration and reward. They are the end all and be all for me in a way no other people on earth could ever be. When they go to therapy to deal with the issues I’ll surely give them it will be something I hope they will be able to take into consideration, how direly important they were and are and will always be to me.
Really, I get a ton wrong. I yell like an angry, over the line drill seargent and immediately return to calm and measured. It’s effective and terrifying and surely I’m doing it wrong. Like the thousand other things I’m doing wrong. But they forgive and love me and let me stay here, in the middle of their universe. They give me everything by simply orbiting me. I won’t always be the sun and when it fades it will be my watching them venture off orbit that will center and sooth me. I don’t think I deserve it frankly, but it will happen that way and I’m forever greateful for it.
I don’t know that I’ll be writing about them so much going forward. They are after all growing up and the last thing I’d want is to hurt them in some inadvertent way. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m likely to continue to shift the focus more to me and the forever becoming part of fatherhood that keeps me growing and moving forward. Still, I’ll be watching them and loving them every stop of the way. Worry is just starting to creep in. That’s a lie. Anyone who’s read my work knows I’m a worrier. But the fears of things that are unknown are becoming more serious. Why shouldn’t they be more serious. After all, the older they get the more tools they have. I will continue to write about my love for them.
Amongst my greatest fears, and this likely says far more about me than it could possibly say about them, is that they will grow up and wonder if I loved them. If I thought of each one of them as individuals and was enamored and enthralled with them in the way that I should be. So I’ll tell them, in awkward and uncomfortable moments. I’ll relish the squirming of their tightly wound teen psyche’s recoiling from the embarrassing dad laying the ‘I love you’s’ on thick and frequently. At drop offs and pick ups and in front of friends. I’ll put it here so they’ll know I thought it before they ever knew it was a thing they’d wonder. But I’ll refrain from sharing them too much with the world. It is called Developing Dad, after all. It’s clearly a place where I should be sharing too much of me with the world.
I wonder sometimes whether the dark visions that are making their way into my brain are a result of my aging. Am I’m simply going down the path I’ve so long been highlighting in my mind of old men who have become blind to the light, unable to train their focus away from the subtle dying of the light in order to see the abundance of good so clearly evident in the world. Am i simply a stereotype, a grumpy old man who sees a world growing ever more harsh and unforgiving. A world that doesn’t properly value love, empathy, responsibility or decency. A world devolving. It’s a world that’s easy to see these days, be it because I’m aging and falling in the trap I’ve so long focused on avoiding or because of a world that isn’t living up to the promises I thought it had made. Regardless, when I see my kids, when I’m with them or thinking of them I’m instantly back. Purpose returns. Love returns. Undeniable, unavoidable empathy and faith. It’s all in them. And to think, they think I’m the one they need. They couldn’t have it more wrong.
developing dad 