I mean look at them.
They are young & beautiful.
Barefoot in the dark shore mud…
A two year old soaked in swamp water from wading..
They are mesmerized by this little perch that probably has a hook set way too deep (because little kids aren’t good at fishing.)
Her hands are gentle and her gaze is focused on the little guy.
He isn’t sure if he’s ready to touch that slimy thing yet, but curious none-the-less.
God, why haven’t taken them fishing more?
An old broken-tip fishing pole and a camping chair on the backwaters of the Mississippi is really all they need to make a lifetime of memories.
How do I balance the dichotomy of Fatherhood and kicking ass in my career?
A while back I reflected more on my time with children, and I wrote…
As I laid in bed tonight singing to my children, tears whisked down my cheeks.
My children are beautiful and wonderful.
They are delightful invitations to come, sit on the floor.
Play, relax, enjoy, laugh, jump, wrestle, get dirty, and most of all don’t sit back and idly let life pass you by.
The living of life is getting down in the now, in the present moment, and if you don’t jump in now, you just might miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
Deep Breath-In. That’s good for my soul.
My children are good for my soul.
They invite me to see this part of my story that I have no memories of.
What was I like as a child?
Was I as free as they are?
What was I like before I was wounded?
The wound.
My children crave my attention.
They crave time together engaged in activity together – sometimes intellectual, learning, reading…
Sometimes discovering new things under a microscope or out in the woods, oftentimes helping bake bread, cut up food, and make kombucha.
They embody presence – that life on life, soul on soul, heart on heart type of living… and isn’t that what I would have craved as a child?
When a parent(s) isn’t around and doesn’t invest into their child’s life what message does that send?
My parents’ marriage has been broken and unsteady since origination.
I barely saw my father because he worked a second job from the time I was 7 or 8 until I was 17.
…all those years of my life without the engagement of those who were supposed to be there the most.
So, without recanting more of the deeper pains and trauma of my childhood , what is the wound?
If I had to name it, if I had to name what I feel like is missing deep in my core… I ask the questions…
- Do I matter?
- Am I significant?
- Am I important?
I sure as hell hate being controlled.
I say that from the depth of my soul, and that feels core and true and easy to express because it’s done with red anger.
What is lying in the depth of that anger below the easy to see and easy to show surface?
I’ve noticed my anger is a secondary emotion, a reaction in most cases.
It’s easy to see how my presence in my children’s lives answers those three questions.
How I engage them, how I speak to them, the number and quality of conversations I have with them over the course of their lives, the space of intimacy and safety I create with my reactions and acceptance of their questions, their struggles, and their questions.
I don’t want others to control me because I feel like it gives them the power to answer my three questions.
Of course, no one person can ultimately answer those questions but myself the Divine, and yet, each day there’s the tension when other people do answer the questions…
- Do I matter to you?
- Am I significant to you?
- Am I important to you?
Whether it’s my wife or my job or that one friend who doesn’t text or call me back anymore…
…at least not in a timeframe that shows he cares one iota about our long lasting and alas, I guess, worn out friendship.
And perhaps that’s where the breakthrough lies for me.
Perhaps, I and the Divine get to answer the three questions in their entirety and finality, and people only get to answer the three questions situationally.
That’s deeply freeing.
So, when it comes to my work, the craft I do to earn a living, it becomes so evidently clear that I must become the best in the world at it…
…so that I control my time, and more so, so that I can be present to my own life and the lives of my children…
…so as to with all my might, power, love, and strength not pass onto them the Wound I received from my father and mother.
If you can relate, here’s raising a glass to you, to me, to our journey of dealing with shit that stops us from being the Father our kids deserve.
Recent Comments