I have yet to celebrate him as a father.
My beloved.
My best friend.
The man who has come so far in such a short time, working so very hard to push beyond what he was taught as a young boy... as a teenager... as a young man. He is learning how to parent a child with a significant history in trauma, a style that looks so incredibly different from what was modeled to and for him.
His work is immense.
The lapse in celebration has nothing to do with him; indeed, every single day I am more in awe of who he is. I am more in awe of him while at the same time, in such a disappointed manner, I feel more and more tired, more overdrawn, and less able to come up with ideas that are suitable for our family to say "hoorah!" to and for the man who stands by and alongside all of us while bearing the invisible cape.
At one point, before we became parents, I envisioned Father's Day with balloons and banners and homemade posters that our children would have colored and covered with glitter. The little ones would have helped me make a special breakfast and then, once fully prepared, the man of the day would come into the kitchen to find the rest of his crew huddled in front of the banner, arms thrown across each other while making wild cries of excitement. Hugs, laughter, joy. We would sit down for breakfast and eat burnt toast, good coffee, fruit- readying ourselves for the hikes we would take and the pictures we would take and some good love-making in the evening for the two of us.
Our world is not like that. There are very few celebrations because they cause anxiety for our son. His mood rises and falls and rises and falls and rises and falls... it can be hard to find the energy needed to work through those ups and downs that come days before the celebration as well as all those days after. It feels near impossible to declare that it was all worth it. That the celebration of someone else was worth the fear for our son.
It is too much to celebrate one person. Our boy needs to know he is important too. That he, too, is valued.
But Father's Day is meant for the father. Or so my sense of tradition tells me. It's not meant for the son. For the family. It's meant for the dad.
And so I sit here, stuck. Stuck in my ideas and dreams and struggling with finding new ways to celebrate. To make what we have...to make our family... special and okay and just right (in my mind).
My beloved.
My best friend.
The man who has come so far in such a short time, working so very hard to push beyond what he was taught as a young boy... as a teenager... as a young man. He is learning how to parent a child with a significant history in trauma, a style that looks so incredibly different from what was modeled to and for him.
His work is immense.
The lapse in celebration has nothing to do with him; indeed, every single day I am more in awe of who he is. I am more in awe of him while at the same time, in such a disappointed manner, I feel more and more tired, more overdrawn, and less able to come up with ideas that are suitable for our family to say "hoorah!" to and for the man who stands by and alongside all of us while bearing the invisible cape.
At one point, before we became parents, I envisioned Father's Day with balloons and banners and homemade posters that our children would have colored and covered with glitter. The little ones would have helped me make a special breakfast and then, once fully prepared, the man of the day would come into the kitchen to find the rest of his crew huddled in front of the banner, arms thrown across each other while making wild cries of excitement. Hugs, laughter, joy. We would sit down for breakfast and eat burnt toast, good coffee, fruit- readying ourselves for the hikes we would take and the pictures we would take and some good love-making in the evening for the two of us.
Our world is not like that. There are very few celebrations because they cause anxiety for our son. His mood rises and falls and rises and falls and rises and falls... it can be hard to find the energy needed to work through those ups and downs that come days before the celebration as well as all those days after. It feels near impossible to declare that it was all worth it. That the celebration of someone else was worth the fear for our son.
It is too much to celebrate one person. Our boy needs to know he is important too. That he, too, is valued.
But Father's Day is meant for the father. Or so my sense of tradition tells me. It's not meant for the son. For the family. It's meant for the dad.
And so I sit here, stuck. Stuck in my ideas and dreams and struggling with finding new ways to celebrate. To make what we have...to make our family... special and okay and just right (in my mind).
You may have already tried this but I wonder if the anxiety for your son would be different if you asked him for ideas on how to celebrate Father's Day. Maybe if he came up with some ideas then he wouldn't have the anxiety. I know for my own anxiety that a lot of it is the fear of the unknown. I like being in control because then I am less anxious.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a great point! I fear the unknown too. I wonder if I asked him or if I didn't. Hmm.
DeleteOne of our things is that if he knows about something too far in advance, the anxiety builds... like Christmas. Holy balls. There has to be a place somewhere there in the middle, shouldn't there?