For me...

A year ago I said out loud that I would like to move. I’ve been commuting 40 minutes to work and 75+ home for EIGHTEEN YEARS. I’ve never in my life spoken up for what I wanted. Never KNOWN what I wanted. Then a year ago I said out loud that I would like to move. My desire immediately took on life. My kids connected to it. We started to hunt. Surely, God would hear my first gentle wish and let me have it easily? It took a year. Agony. Ups and downs. I felt an unfamiliar surge of hope a hundred times. I gave up a hundred times. Wanting something. Everyone KNOWING I wanted something was excruciating. Like standing on a stage in the spotlight when what I know is sitting in the back row in the dark. We decided to give up at the end of the month and then it all fell into place. Someone LOVED our home and wanted it. We found the best home we had looked at in the whole year. And it all worked out. My kids heard what I wanted and worked for it. Tina heard what I wanted and gave up everything for me. For me...

Resonance

Play a G on the bassoon and the G string on the guitar vibrates. Each room has it's own pitch. Play that note and the room rings. Just music? Wind past a bridge at just the wrong speed and the bridge resonates. Concrete and steel turned to dust. Powerful. I find that I resonate at the wrong pitch. I read a story to my kids that I thought was beautiful. When I heard it through their ears I realized it was depressing. I played them a piece of music I thought was sweet and realized it was the sound of despair. I'm tuned to depression. The sounds of happiness grate my nerves. How can I tighten the strings and raise the pitch?

innocent and sweet and fun

I’ve always hated holidays. When I was a kid my mother made a big fuss on birthdays and Christmas. She would decorate, make a cake, plan gifts. But it was a lie. Our home was bleak and angry and violent. My mother would be in bed when I left for school and in bed when I got home. In her nightgown for days. Or she would be gone when I got home. She would be absent and then suddenly angry. Always at me. Then the perfect holidays. She made me bring her tea on a tray in bed. It had to be the way she liked it. Half-and-half in a little blue and white pitcher. But it was just a matter of time before something ruined the day. Something failed to be perfect. Then it was my fault.

But one of Tina’s amazing qualities is loving and creating beautiful holidays. Every birthday is special. Thoughtful, beautiful, delightful. But for years, especially after the church blowup when I was depressed, I dreaded every event. For two years I had a migraine on EVERY holiday. But, the events are so good and the children are so wonderful that they have been winning me over. For a while I hated them AND loved them. Smiling through the migraine. Seeing that my people are precious and being glad they were happy, but suffering myself. Yesterday we celebrated the twins’ 10th and it was perfect. Not the perfect show of my childhood, but real perfect. Innocent and sweet and fun. Bobbing for apples. Soccer with the neighbors. A piñata in the shape of a kiwi. Smiling children. I loved it.

sulking in the back seat

When Drew was 13 I used to take him with me whenever I went out somewhere in the car. Sometimes, he would sit in the back seat and sulk. Refuse to even speak. I would joke with him, try to plan part of the outing he would like. I would talk to him as if he wasn’t sulking and try to draw him out of it. He would just glare at me in the mirror. I couldn’t understand it. I grew up without a father. Drew had a nice father who wanted to be with him, but he didn’t know it. He treated me like an enemy.

At the same time, Siri was 11 and LOVED to go anywhere with me. She was cheerful, talkative and happy. Same dad, same car, same situation.

Drew got over it, but I think I’m still doing it. Sulking in the back seat, not knowing how to enjoy. Not knowing that I am loved and could be happy. I’m trying really hard to change.

it slips away

I found my father’s briefcase in the basement. Musty black leather. Inside, his perfect block lettering. Drawings he made. He drew so well. Some part of me longs to be like him. Which part draws me? Alcoholism? Wife battering? Abandoning his kids? Suicide? Some part of me misses him and wants to be like him. I don’t have any bad feelings toward him. I’ve never been angry with him or felt any judgement toward him.

And then there is me. I do something good, something kind, something smart, and I feel good. For ten minutes. An hour. Then it slips away and I’m sick of myself again. My easiest emotional reaction to myself is condemnation. It is so easy to judge myself. Lazy. Fat. Stupid. Boring. My brain tries to tell me I am a good father, a good husband. Interesting. But some part of me wants to suffer. It crushes me. Ruins my sleep. Follows me everywhere I go and judges everything I do. Not creative enough. Doesn't matter. Pathetic. I deserve to suffer. But I don’t know why. My brain sees that my father failed. That I am succeeding in many ways, but it doesn’t reach the part of me that hates me. If it were anyone else judging themselves so cruelly I would be kind to them. I would tell them they were good. Brilliant. Wonderful. Why am I the only one in the world that doesn’t deserve any kindness? I don’t know what to do about it.

her eyes shined

In 2013 I went to Guatemala with my 18 year old daughter. One day we were in a rural area visiting some families that do not speak Spanish, but a dialect that I couldn't understand a word of. While the grownups talked, I went outside to see the kids. None of the kids we visited had fathers and I decided that I was going to completely let go and put in my eyes as much delight and enjoyment as I could possible give them. Actually, it was less like putting and more like letting go. I played with them, swung them around, hung them upside down. Never spoke a word. Looked them in the eye and smiled at them. There was one girl in particular. Seven years old. It took me 30 minutes to coax her out to play with me and her brother. Smiling and waving to show her it was safe. When she joined us we threw a small thing like a hula hoop back and forth for almost an hour. Every time I looked at her I allowed my full heart to show. She had the most beautiful smile. Her eyes shined. She saw in my eyes that she was beautiful. Right now I can feel her in my chest. Little girls see in our eyes that they are lovely and that's how they know they are lovely.

how hard her life was

My father was interested in man things. He was a test-pilot, rode a motorcycle, drove a sports car, drank beer, watched football, collected guns. After he died we had no money. He was living with a woman who fought my mother in court for his estate. Said she was his common-law wife. As a result we had no money. Food was an issue. One day my mother took one of his guns out of her closet. She sat me and my brother on her bed. She tried to kill all three of us. She couldn't follow through, but she tried. Sobbing. She would sometimes tell us about it later. To show how hard her life was.

i'd rather suffer

I really struggle with inconsistency. There are days when I am brilliant. Interesting. But most days I am mediocre. Dull. Stupid. The bad days scare me. They seem more real. I sit in my cubicle by myself and try to use self-talk to remember how to be interesting. It doesn't work. I want to be happy. My family needs me to be happy. But I hate myself so much that nothing moves. I have so many reasons to condemn myself. It's easy. Almost pleasant. Downhill the whole way. The world seems so black and empty in those moments.

I know the answer. It is so simple. Confidence. When I believe that I am special, I am. Confidence is such a mystery to me. The world is full of men that are confident. But they rape and kill and hate. They do harm and feel put out when everyone fails to bow to them. I am a man that cares. For women. For children. For hurting people. Even in my black moments I know this. If only I could use their trick. Tap into confidence and move through the world without doubt and fear. I would be a force for good. But somehow, in a way that seems stupid even to me, I don't trust it. Confidence, deep down, feels like the path to being one of them. It feels like if even if I could stop constantly questioning myself and judging myself I would become an asshole. Another arrogant man that takes and hurts and then leaves. I'd rather suffer.

eyes staring at my legs

I was pigeon toed when I was a little boy. Four years old. My mother got leg braces for me to wear at night. To straighten me out. When I cried my father would take them off. He hated crying. Then my parents would fight. Screaming. Breaking. I hid under my bed. I wanted them to stop. I would have gladly died if it would have made them love each other. I can remember as a little boy watching movies, TV, sit-coms and only caring about the couples that were in conflict. I wanted them to love each other. To this day when ashamed I feel angry eyes staring at my legs. And in my dreams I am always trying to hide. Behind trees in the rain. Behind furniture. Even behind the Queen of Hearts' white rose bushes while they are being painted. But I'm never invisible. My legs always stick out no matter what I do and they find me.

it didn't work

My father used to sneak me out of bed late at night. We would sit together in his big chair and watch horror movies. I was 5 years old. Terrified. Didn't want to watch. He made me watch. Made me pretend to not be afraid. Sitting with him had to be enough to make me brave. It wasn't that he wanted to be with me; share a favorite interest. He was making me tough. Driving the fear out of me with his will. It didn't work.

i have everything

I have everything. A good job. A beautiful place in the country to live. Some good friends. Eight wonderful kids and a wife that loves me and that I love. But I struggle to enjoy it. Don't know how to be happy. I learned so young and so vividly that the world is bleak. That no one wants me. That I am the problem - that it remains so regardless of my circumstances. At some point each day I feel full of death. That I can't possibly live one more day in this empty place. Why can't I get better? Lately I've been wanting to hurt myself. It seems just. That something terrible should happen to me. Then at least one thing in this empty senseless place would make sense. At the same time I love my family more than ever. I feel for them. I want to be here for them. I want to fight for them. Want them to never feel unwanted. But I know something has to change. I can't love them and hate me. It doesn't work that way.

brighter. bigger.

My father died when he was 39. The night before I turned 40 I dreamed a birthday party for me in the house where I grew up. The house was different. The same shapes, but brighter. Bigger. Full of people. I had redecorated the house by painting huge black words all over the walls and ceilings. They were terms of endearment for my wife, Tina. Kind. Beautiful. I answered the front door and the pastor of the church that exploded was there. He paced. Mute. Agitated. I greeted him and asked him in. He came in but still did not speak. He tried to set down his bible, but threw it across the room in anger. When I held out my hand to him he hesitated and then held out a sermon written on paper. He had prepared a message in case anyone asked him to preach at my party. He let me shake the sermon instead of his hand.

Later my wife asked me to say something to the guests. I wanted to tell them I was glad they came, that I had been sure I couldn't outlive my father and make it to 40, but I was too upset to speak. I would get to the word "father" and not be able to continue.

i wish she had loved me

Last year my 4 year old daughter rode in a little yellow racecar with her grama. During the race, Grampa ran into them and injured Grama's shoulder a bit. No one was really hurt. The next morning when I said "Good morning, Princess." to my daughter she told me she wasn't a princess any more because she made Grama and Grampa crash. I kissed her and told her it wasn't she that caused the crash and that she would always be a princess. It was easy to fix. She had not heaped a lifetime of contempt on herself yet. She just needed to be told it wasn't her fault.

My mother sent me to a psychiatrist when I was growing up. Of course, when I had to leave class early to go see the shrink that in itself confirmed every week that there was something wrong with me. But, it took me years to see that what really kept the therapy from doing any good was that my doctor did not care about me. I didn't notice at the time, but now I know what it is like to be loved. And I know how easy it is to love children. She was indifferent. For 10 years of therapy she was indifferent. She was the only adult other than my mother that I was ever alone with. She was in a position to undo much of the harm done to me. Much of the harm I did to myself. I wish she had loved me.

the house is me

I dreamed I was in an old brown house. The father of the house could not find his son and needed my help. We searched and finally found a secret room behind a false wall in the cellar. Bare concrete. Rusty metal hooks. Blood everywhere. The decades old remains of a tortured boy still strapped to the floor. The father was devastated. I left him and went for help. But there was no one anywhere. Vast emptiness. Dry, cracked earth. I went back to the cellar and found the father playing back old home movies of himself torturing his own son to death.

I asked my friend who is interested in dreams to interpret it for me. He said the house is me.

we're all mad here

My father was a test pilot and left the following quote on the chalkboard at work in 1977.

"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. "What sort of people live about here?"
"In THAT direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Later that day he crashed his plane and died.

trap door

We live standing on a trap door. Some people spend their whole lives just standing on it, never knowing it is a trap door. It may as well be granite. For some the door swings open and they fall to their deaths. Swallowed whole. Some of us catch the edge on the way down and hang there by our fingertips. We can see the raging river beneath our feet. Hear its roar. It is possible to hang there for years. We look like everyone else, but inside we are inches from being consumed. Fingers white and trembling. Trying to hold on a little longer. Sometimes we can even climb back up and get the door closed. But once you know you're standing on a trap door nothing is ever the same. If you can't trust the ground you can't ever rest.

someone dies

In my favorite Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is standing at the top of a snowy hill with his sled. The hill is obviously too dangerous for sledding, but Calvin thinks "go ahead, you'll make it." and "It's probably not as bad as it looks." He turns to us and says out loud "I think my brain is trying to kill me."

My brain is like that. I've begun to realize that my body is trying to kill me too. Consuming itself. It won't sleep. Muscles old rusty barbed wire from year after year stiffening to receive the next blow. You never know where it will come from or when. I've spent my whole life trying to be ready for the next attack. To brace myself. Then each one catches me unaware. Someone leaves. Someone dies.

Then I realize that the person who left wasn't who I thought they were anyway. Did I even know them? I find out they lied. I find out I lied to myself. How does one grieve the loss of a person that was part real and part made up? Which part was real? Which part did I love?

told her I would do better

When I was 12 I came home from school on my bike and my mother told me to pack a bag. She was taking me to the psychiatric ward to stay for a while. I've never been able to cry, but I cried that day. I said please. Told her I would do better. Not that I ever really understood what I was doing wrong. I just knew she hated me. She seemed to have plenty of reasons. Once I adjusted to the hospital think I liked it. It was predicable. Quiet.

still in the celophane

I think I mentioned that I died when I was eight. My parents ended an alcoholic, abusive marriage when I was seven. My father took my brother and I on weekends for almost a year. Fishing. Model airplanes. Then one Saturday morning I went outside to wait for him only to find a box on the porch. Everything we had left at his apartment. No note, no phone call, just a box of our stuff. I had saved up and bought him a model airplane for Christmas. He left it on the porch with everything else. Still in the celophane. I think I was confused and wounded by the marriage and divorce, but still struggling on - still alive - until that day. That was the day I knew for sure that no one wanted me. I never saw him again.

the bomb

In the late 90s I helped start a conservative, non-denominational, bible church. It was the pastor that drew people. Drew me. He was disciplined, knowledgeable, dynamic. Someone who was actually winning. The church was hard work, always struggling to get people to be more committed, to have higher standards. And all the while there was a ticking bomb right in the middle of us that we never heard. Sometimes the ticking was pretty damn loud. We didn't want to hear it. After eight years, the bomb finally went off. Super pastor was caught in a five year secret affair. Didn't come clean - caught. On video. By his own son.

Over the next few months as I and the other three leaders were trying to pick up the pieces, I began to realize just how far off track we were. This disciplined, put-together, super pastor had trained us to be just like him. We were pouring our efforts into following rules, looking good on the outside, saying the right words, building up our club. Thinking we were doing something good. Really we were providing super pastor with puppydog devotion while he lied and sneaked. His fools.

After the bomb went off, I quickly got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. Told the other leaders that I would finish out my turn and then they would have to replace me. When I got the the end I fell on my face and couldn't get up for a long time. Three years. I was grieving the loss of an illusion. Realizing that for years we had been on the wrong path. Making an institution instead of a family. At the same time, the other leaders were realizing that their little church was great and had finally purged out their problems; sinning pastors and undedicated leaders. Not one of them will speak to me now.