Dad on Duty #73

This is getting harder.

Emotionally, not physically or operationally.

I thought at this point we’d be feeling less and less angst and sadness.

But it’s not working out that way.

It feels like we’re on the down side of the arc.  After years of raising kids, as they pass into the phases where they need us less and less…it’s like a rocket, that’s descending.

I thought it would feel like the downhill part of a bike race….you’re still in it, but you can peddle less and coast.  Hold your arms up in the air as you zoom down the road.  That is a good feeling.

But that’s not what I’m feeling.

This week is the Kids’ Birthdays.  They are only a few days apart (although years apart), so in practical terms, the birthdays blend together from our viewpoint.

I recognize, and respect, that from their viewpoint, their birthdays are very distinct and separate.  And we do our best to act that way.  But from our perspective, it is one big blur of the odometer ticking over another digit.

Little Bit turned 10 today.  Her brother, the #1 Child, turns 21.  Both are huge milestones.  We enter double-digits for the first time with the second kid, and with it, a big leap in independence.  Also known as:   “I need you less”.

The Primary Child now officially and legally doesn’t need us at all.  (Except financially…he would immediately starve to death….).

Importantly, he is moving his furniture out of our house today, for the first time.  He is moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished one, and the easiest solution is simply to take his stuff from here.

His room is empty, for the first time ever.

It is the perfect metaphor for the feeling.  An empty room, where for years there was so very much happening.

Both Amy and I have shifted our lives, from our careers and selves, to the kids, over the last 10 years.  We had the good fortune to be able to survive on one income, so Amy left a very challenging, rewarding and difficult career to stay home with the kids about eight years ago.  So for half of Jack’s life, and virtually all of Tori’s, her full-time gig has been THEM.

I also shifted by time and attention more and more to Dadness.  That was a huge change for me; for much of my life, I literally worked 90 or more hours per week.  I couldn’t be trusted with so much as a pet, much less a kid (certainly not a real relationship….ask my plethora of ex-wives…..).

But this battleship turned.  And now, Dad and Husband is my primary job.  I work as needed to keep the lights on (although I still have genuine moments of passion and meaningfulness in our work, it can’t compare to my Dad/Husband job).

And now, in what seems like a blink of the eye, we’re being downsized to part-time.

Amy and I reacted differently to that today.  As Tori turned 10 and Jack turned 21, and prepared to go back to his grown-up life, with all his stuff, we were both very sad.

I think for Amy, it was very directly the realization of moving farther and farther to the right of the Parent Spectrum.  That is especially hard when it is your full-time commitment.  These little humans mean more to her than anything in the universe, far more than life itself.  They are the reason for her life.  She has been their training wheels, as her primary life purpose, for so very long.

But now, they are riding the bike just fine, thank you.  Great job, Mom.

As they wave back to you.  And ride on down the road.

I certainly felt that too.  I made a very conscious effort, as did Amy, to change my life and wrap it around this family.  And that life is changing and moving….and dragging me with it, reluctantly.

But strangely, I also grieved an awful lot today for my Mom.

One of the few joys in her life….and those were very few, indeed…..was sending gifts to our kids.

She would spend a tremendous amount of time and thought picking out gifts for them.  And when the kids got them, we would call her and they would tell her how awesome they were.

And she completely reveled in that.  I heard, for a rare moment, real elation in her voice.

I had sought to bring her that happiness my whole life, even as a child.  And rarely succeeded.

But the kids could do it every time, without fail.  Just by thanking her for the simplest gift.

Today, for the first time ever, they couldn’t call her.  They called Amy’s parents, and had a great chat with them.

And all I could think of was….more than anything:

I want to hear my Mom right now.

But never again, in this life.  In this world.

And so on the way to the birthday dinner, I cried.  I cried because my kids are growing up, I cried for my wife’s sadness,

And much to my surprise, I mostly cried because I miss my Mom.

Happy birthday kids.

Big, deep breath.  It’s about them, not us.  As always, push our feelings aside and do what we can to make the kids’ experience happy.

And keep riding this rocket, even if it is on the down side of the arc.