The damned ding ding dingaling on my phone is waking me again.
Shit, not another crisis beaming here like Count Tinkerbell all the way from
the office, chomping down her frigging gold-knifed teeth through the ceiling to
devour my morning. I grasp the phone and press its glow to my face. Panic over.
That noise was just that God damn phone alarm. She orders
me around, telling me to get my aching ass out of bed, beating my stiff swollen knees
with her reminders and calendar events. I
keep setting her annoying beeping voice earlier. Early enough to get on my superpower
bike with a screen that tricks my 45-year-old achy bod into believing it’s in
the French Countryside spinning free. Maybe I’ll stop at a vineyard before
breakfast. Get in a glass of vino before all hell breaks loose.
I ought to be a bear. They get to sleep all winter, don’t
they? Or a frog. My kids would like that
better. They could carry me around and
pat my lumpy slimy back, and they’d still think I’m cute. But I’m just a grown-up, bald 45-year-old boy called Husband, Daddy, Director. Sounds important, but it’s
never enough.
At work, I’ve got a cascade of jobs the size of Everest to
climb, and its blinding edges block my way with silvery jagged problems. Feels
like I’m always reaching for the next crevice to clutch. I’m panting, and my sweaty Brooks Brothers shirt is flapping in the wind as my shiny black Farragamo
leather shoes slip. And then, the laces get caught on the details and I look
down. Careful, those distractions below can cause you vertigo…the egos, red
tape, senseless errors, antiquated systems… if you stare at them too long, you
forget where you’re going, and the mountain just gets higher. Sometimes I dangle
there from my bitten, bleeding nails wondering if someone could just hand me a
promotion, a beer, and retirement package all on the same day. I’ll open an
organic dairy farm and sell milk. Or maybe become a college professor who
spends all day talking about ideas over his reading glasses, in an old colonial
schoolroom while sipping a hot latte.
Can’t be with the kids enough. They say, “Daddy where ARE
you? Daddy you missed my parade, missed my story last night, missed cuddles.” They have no idea how much I miss THEM. Knowing
everything about them. But I've been out climbing mountains that nobody sees. I've got no pictures to show or breathtaking stories to tell, no harrowing adventures to brag about. My dream of home cooked,
nightly meals by a crackling red brick hearth, listening to stories from the kids’
days as my wife rubs my shoulders…Hah. Young fellas, don’t even bother with
that figment. I’m lucky if I get home for dinner twice a week, after it’s
already been served. And if I do get there, my kids are so strung out and
surprised to see me that they act like fang-toothed nymphs that you see in old
story books. You know, banging the table with their forks, shrieking over each
other, demanding to sit by me or refusing to look at me. Their emotions have
run amuck. I can’t hear my thoughts, much less make a sound to share them.
Sometimes I yell just to be heard, and then I realize that they hear so little
from me… Let it not be my angry loud bellow their little heads hear when they think, “Daddy.”
After they have pounded my wife and me to pieces with their
zesty energy, for a short time, I get to feel what has been missing. Feel what
keeps me climbing upward. They wrestle with me, lead me by the hand to their
quiet bedrooms where they sound out stories from their favorite books or listen to
mine. I lay back and work to keep my tired eyeballs open and focused, sinking
into their joy, their magic, their being in the world. We are finally in a
place free of all the beeps, buzzes, calls, trades, lists, charts, dollars,
demands. They chatter on about a world of other things-- friends, disappointments,
dreams, mistakes. They have no sense of time. Finally I am home. Home for my
family. Home for love.
--------------------------------------------------
I’ve been writing fiction lately, sharing new perspectives
on some of the challenges I observe facing so many families, including mine. I
hope this narrative does at least a bit of justice to the struggle fathers
experience as they are pulled, like moms, in far too many directions. The love of my life has taught me that being a
wonderful dad is possible, but it is painful, and it is hard work.
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