Dad Revisited

This weekend, we had a house guest join us for a couple of weeks. We’re happy to have him (especially because it means my son gets to go to France next year) but it causes a bit of disarray (as a two-week house guest would cost for any household. I had a hard time finding a lot of my things. There was a bit of frustrated sniping (much on my part) as I searched hither and yon for travel items.

You see, I live a divorced life. I’m not divorced, but I live that way. I work approximately 80 miles from home, and traffic makes a daily trip impossible. So I live in an apartment Monday through Thursday nights, and then see the family and kids on the weekends. It makes for a strange existence. I imagine that my life is similar in a number of ways to the life that a divorced father must face:

• Being out of the house means there is not always ‘a place for everything, and everything in it’s place.’ My clothes are on hangers and in a laundry basket that travels with me each week.
• I consult on discipline issues for the children, but I am not there to enforce the sanctions, so my vote is not really a full vote. I can impose a hefty punishment, but as anyone knows, and unenforced punishment is not really a punishment at all.
• I help with homework when someone asks for help, but I cannot check bookbags, make sure everyone is taking their lunch, or look them in the eye to see if they are being truthful when they say “I missed the bus and that’s why I’m late!”
• I am often at odds with my wife, most frequently about the calendar. “I thought you would be here at such and such a time” or “You were taking the kids at such and such a time.”
• I get a lot of “poor guy” looks from the staff I work with at school.

I’ve been sitting in my apartment, and I’ve started to wonder if the biggest similarity is with the solitary life we live away from the family. There are but a few ways a single, divorced, or functionally single guy can turn out:

• A buff, gorgeous man who works out and/or is involved in athletics and whom women find attractive as he cruises the bars.
• A fat, slovenly guy who sits at home eating too much, watching porno on the internet, never talking to others, and eventually making history as “the guy they had to remove the back wall to get to the hospital.”
• The guy who falls somewhere in between, who tries to eat healthy foods, works out too little, doesn’t go out, and gets a headache every time he decides to take a drink.

As I sit looking at my increasing paunch and my ever-fluctuating weight, I wonder if the feelings I have are like those of the divorced? There is a tendency when you are out of shape to stay out of shape. I call this new unfit inertia “fatnertia.” But what causes this fatnertia? Sure, plain laziness plays a part, but what of depression? Divorced fathers must face a depression when they are absent from their families that leaves them wondering why they should bother taking care at all. Fat, thin, it matters not.

The truth is it really does matter. If I could get in better shape, I would feel better. If I feel better, I’ll treat those around me better. I could improve my relationships with my wife and kids. I would have more energy for that crush of weekend activities. I could finish my days romancing my wife instead of snoring loudly in front of the television.

Fight fatnertia. Put down that cookie and go to the gym. I am.

Note: It was Pizza Night at the gym, so it was kind of counter-productive.