Dad Revisited

You want your children to learn as much as they can. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. So you send them away on school overnight trips. With this in mind, my son prepared for two wonderful travel opportunities in the span of two weeks.

Of course, the day before he leaves, something tragic happens in his family, and he ends up visiting with a grandparent, perhaps for the last time. This trauma affects him deeply, but he stands tall and tries to ignore the possibilities while trying to enjoy himself on the trip. The trip goes off as scheduled, and when he returns (after 3 days out of cellular range) he gets to see his grandparent, who has managed to not only survive, but to thrive.

Then he packs and plans for an international trip. We equipped him with an international calling card. We gave him an international cellular phone. He visited again with his ailing grandparent, who will likely still be here upon his return, but will almost certainly not be home any time soon. Again, he was upbeat, even though he knows that when he returns, we’ll have one more in the house. He agrees it would be wrong to leave one in a house alone while the other is in a rehab facility. And so, when he returns, we will no longer be nuclear, but extended.

Off he goes, landing uneventfully in Paris. Checking in at the hostel, he begins his international adventure with enthusiasm and joy. After a few days, he leaves the hostel to head home. Not home to us, but a temporary home with the student he hosted in November. For us as parents, a much more comforting time. What could be better than having him stay with a family? We had hosted their child, we imagined a quid pro quo would allow him to be protected and comfortable.

Who could predict that we’d have trouble figuring out how to text message from abroad? Who would have predicted we’d have to try a variety of ways to call from his cellular to mine? Who would expect a tragedy in their household? Who could predict that the family would be devastated in a way that would make it impossible for them to continue to host him? Who would know that he would be thrust into a circumstance which would be nearly impossible to manage in English, with a family you know well? How can he possibly be expected to manage it in French, with a family he barely knows, on their worst day ever?

I consider myself to be an outstanding planner, but some things you just can’t be expected to predict. Be safe and well, Skippy. Hugs are waiting for you at home.

Taking a blog hiatus means I’m a little behind in my blogging to-do list. I thought it would be a good idea to set some goals for myself in each of the core areas of this blog. You know, offer a little focus to my quest for self-improvement.

Resolution 1- Lose Weight and Improve General Health

A few years ago, I weighed in at 250 pounds. I felt terrible at that weight, so I put myself on a self-designed regimen of exercise (walking every day for about 2 miles) and diet (more vegetables and fruits, much less volume of everything else.) It worked, and I lost 30 pounds.

Now, I’ve regained all the weight, and then some! When I’m fat, I’m not as good as father as I should be. I finish work and want to go to sleep. I don’t have the energy to play or even talk with the kids most days. I don’t feel attractive, so it has an impact on my, er, um, marriage. Not to mention the fact that if I drop the weight, I increase my life span significantly. I’ll be a much better father and husband if I am, in fact, alive. Of course, I am worth a significant amount of money deceased, so there is a potential fail/win if I don’t lose the weight. However, I resolve to get my weight down to 220 pounds.

Resolution 2- Learn from The Cobbler

I’ve heard many times about The Cobbler whose kids have no shoes. I will make sure my children have shoes… no, wait! That’s not it. Actually, my kids are both extremely talented musically. My son is even considering going into Music Education. You would think that I’d be on that like white on rice. I’m not.

There are a variety of factors that contribute. Distance is a big one. We’re apart for 4 night every week, so we don’t get to touch base all week on things like practice. Then I come home for the weekend and get dragged into things that are more pressing but less important. I resolve to make more time to foster my children’s musical talents.

Resolution 3- Remember The Most Important Earthly Relationship

We are all a collection of our experiences and relationships. Many are by chance. We do not pick our mother, nor do we pick our father. Our children are born to us. We choose to have them (usually) but we must play the hand we’re dealt. You can’t just bail on your kids if the relationship is in trouble. They are yours for keeps.

We make one truly important choice in our lives: the choice of a mate. I remind my kids when they get particularly thorny with their mother that “she was the one I chose to spend my life with. I love them, but she comes first.” The truth of that is often forgotten in the heat of whatever family moment we are in. I need to remember each and every moment that the most important person in my life is my wife. The fact that she is so wonderful should make me get down on my knees each day to give thanks. What it actually does is allow me to put her needs second, third, and last, knowing that she is so special she will never hold it against me. She deserves better, and I would like to try to give her better. I resolve to spend at least two nights each month putting her needs first and foremost.

Check out my resolutions on Faith and Technology.

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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.