I drove close to 250 miles on Thursday. We drove against the storm, and part of that expressway trip was slowed by rain so heavy it triggered the collision warning lights in the car. Every few years, it happens, driving along in the rain and all of a sudden you can’t see any car anywhere around you. It can be disorienting.
The trip was work, and that sometimes can be taxing. I’m more conscious of how I feel before and after these trips than when I was younger. Time in the car interferes with routine. The days feel less structured, especially a day trip into and out of a different time zone. I still value the time, it’s just … different.
Result of everything - the drive, the uncertainty of the trip, the weird traffic and storms, the work itself, the sitting in the car and maybe coffee - when I made it back to my place I felt a strange physical uncertainty.
And lying in bed I had a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God moment … what little nudge along the way, early or late, would have sent me in a different direction? In the innumerable moments, every tiny decision or happening regardless whether of my making. We take for granted our paths, I think, and I don’t think appreciate enough how things could have gone worse. A chaotic childhood, the close calls working. That the brakes were working on the semitrailer behind us in traffic, that the driver in front thought to turn their hazards on, that I wasn’t trying to identify by silhouette some bird on a distant power line the moment we lost visibility. Who can say.
I think a lot about how life to this point could have gone better. My honest assessment, most days, is that “it ain’t all good but it’s all good enough.” I know it isn’t healthy to dwell on anything. But everything could have gone a lot worse too. God knows there was, every day really there remains, that potential.
I had a good afternoon with my sons last weekend. We went to a beach with friends and their kids and soaked in the sun and water and felt the summer. Lost another pair of gas station sunglasses to the lake.
Parenting doesn’t come easy. The instincts are there but I don’t know how to accomplish fatherhood, and I don’t ever feel like I did all well or like I have a handle on things. I haven’t had a day where I thought, yes, I was a good father today. This is a steady state; I don’t think it unique among fathers. Maybe.
You check the boxes: food, shelter, safety, welcoming home, and then am I … for me it’s am I protecting their youth as much as I can. That day we all smiled and the kids came home to a safe place and we laughed and were silly. My younger is developing his sense of discretion and preference, I can see on his face the tiny decisions he makes even though he can’t speak them yet. The facial expressions are strong. I wrote down some things for myself, and the kids both slept having expended all their energy running through sand and chasing cicadas.
Each day my older son becomes more aware of the world, more conscious of his surroundings and curious, and few inquisitive conversations end understanding the world a safer, kinder place. He picks up bits of culture and history at school and the honest answer to questions about guns and war and people dying are all just … it’s our world and he will grow into it the same as the rest of us have. I try not to lose sight of this because it’s moving fast. It’s moving so fast. And this is it, this is all of it, and sometimes I have to remind myself.
Listening