When Worlds Collide
There are, I have decided, Two Worlds within which every parent walks, one foot firmly (or not so firmly) planted in each.
There is: What You See World and What You Don’t See World.
What You See World looks like some of this:
High Powered Cute Redhead Scientist Wife conducts herself with the utmost professionalism and decorum. She is from Mississippi. As in Deep Mississippi. As in she married a Yankee and her hometown has never gotten over it. She runs Earth. In her head. All day long. She worries for all of us because it is her job. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I just know that if she Stopped Worrying for even one minute, every planet in our solar system would spin right out of orbit and that’d be the end of it. So we let her worry. It’s how she irons out all the wrinkles in the world. She is proper, under control and never breaks character. Ever.
Ever.
What You Don’t See World looks like some of this:
She is a lunatic and I wish I could film her and show the world how she thinks she can dance when there is any Mo-Town playing. It drives me nuts that everyone thinks I’m the animated nutjob. If you could see what I see in her, you’d never, ever believe it. She lives to irritate me when she knows I’m irritable. She thinks it’s funny. It’s getting to where she can laugh me out of a bad mood sooner and sooner. But I don’t laugh during Irritable. I laugh later when I think of how she dances around the kitchen in her So Not Black way, knowing full well it drives me nuts.
What You See World looks like some of this:
Alpha Male has one job. This job is made up of One Singular Purpose. This Purpose consists of One Thing And One Thing Only: being the consummate big brother to Beta Male in every way you can imagine (but you have to have had a big brother to get this one). We’re talking the full spectrum, ranging from Sweet (but we won’t tell anyone) to Bully. And everything in between. Each night during Bedtime Clown Car Circus, he finds a brand new way to bother his little brother. Then little brother deploys the Very Practiced and Fake Crying (not my first rodeo and I invented that one, so don’t even), making me, The Law, come Up There. And I will find Recalcitrant Teenager standing up on his lower bunk (so busted), caught red-handed picking on Beta Male. Who half the time started it anyway (not my second rodeo either and I invented that one too, so don’t even). And then I will point (fail), raise my voice in that Lowered Voice That Growls (fail), tell him to get his butt back in that bed right now—AND NO I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR SIDE OF IT JUST GET BACK IN BE—ALEX! YOU LAY DOWN TOO BUSTER! (fail, and fail.) And then he gave me a look I have seen in photos I have on the wall. And I have hidden in my heart. And which I haven’t seen in too long.
It wasn’t anger. I’m not even sure it was frustration. It was a knotted up look with lowered brow and tightened jaw and it took me back ten years to the first time I ever saw it. (Mine only and I’m not sharing it).
What You Don’t See World looks like some of this:
The Law goes down stairs and tries to read and not think about how he feels like the day Alpha Male tries not to cry too, Because It’s Time To Say Goodbye, is getting closer and closer. And remembers the day his little punching bag, Beta Male, stomped his little angry foot into this world. And how Dad Two Times Over stepped into the hospital hallway to level out. And, alone, surrounded by the buzzing hospital hive, heard felt my firstborn son turn the corner all the way down that long hall. And how I knelt down on one knee and watched him walk very slowly toward me. And how I held his small face and said, “…you have a little brother,” and looked into his I Have No Real Idea What You Just Told Me eyes knowing that, no matter how many times he pounded on his little brother (and he does), nobody would love the little compatriot hoodlum like we would.
So, today, in about two hours, I’ll be going to his school and telling a big, fat, giant lie. To the school secretary. And to Alpha Male. I’ll come up with something about an orthodontist appointment we completely forgot about. And he’ll roll his eyes but not too much because, after all, I’m yanking his little butt out of the last day of school before Thanksgiving, right? And then we’ll drive to the orthodontist. But then we’ll pass it right by. And he’ll recruit his signature Hey Dumbass Dad Voice and say, “…um. You missed your turn.” And then I’ll say, “…um. No, I didn’t.” And then I’ll take him to the movie he’s wanted to see. Just me and him. And I’ll try and lose myself in the movie and not think about how the time is going by too fast for me.
I feel like all I do is yell at him these days. And I miss that little kid.
So I’m taking him out of school and we’re playing hooky.
Take that, World.
What You See World looks like some of this:
Beta Male is the nicest kid in the world. And he’s polite and sweet and affectionate. And you have to know him from the moment he was conceived (and I was there, trust me) to know that there is a very fine line between Authentic Nicest Kid In The World and I’m Actually Feeling A Little Scared So I’m Doing Over-Nice To Figure It Out. And you have to know how to waltz through that one. It’s very delicate, that one. He’s a middle kid and I know Middle Kid. So it’s delicate, this one. Not him. It.
What You Don’t See World looks like some of this:
High Powered Dad (me again) finds a quiet space to lie down for just a second. Alone. Please God, alone. Let me have just some Alone. And then Beta Male will come by and see the one thing he never
ever
ever
fails to take advantage of:
Dad’s available chest. At which point he will drop
drop
whatever he’s doing, wherever he was going, whyever he was knotted up, and come over and lay his head down on my chest. And right in front of God and everybody say (I promise I am not making this up), “…I just like being near you.”
And then I’ll realize (again) that they are, in fact, here to kill us. The kids, I mean. They’re here to kill us.
Us and every misconception we ever had about who’s healing who.
And how transforming our hearts began with Bone Tired. And Too Tired To Care That God Is About To Cut. Very Deep. And Very Surgically (but it’s eclipsed by the intersection of The World We See and The World We Don’t, cleverly disguised as the birth of our children).
What You See World looks like some of this:
Charlie Girl, not unlike her mother, runs Earth. And ever since the first time she tipped her little hip backward in Full-On Attitude, and pointed one little finger right in my face, and gave me What For (she was not even three)…I realized that I could have eighteen sons, one right after another, and she and her Mom would still outnumber us eighteen billion to one. Sometimes she throws a fit. Sometimes I throw it right back. Sometimes I screw it right up and fall for the lie that it’s a tug-of-war and outyell her. Everytime I do that, I win.
Meaning I lose. Because I can outyell her.
And I hate that part of me.
What You Don’t See World looks like some of this:
Holding her and apologizing while she cries, she apologizes right back, meeting my “honey, daddy is so sorry for yelling,” with “…it’s okay, daddy.” And she will have to wait till she sees her One Day Husband do very likely the very same thing with his little girl, before…
…she realizes that, way back to her childhood, daddy’s heart was breaking and no, it’s not okay. Daddy very much still needs to unclench his heart’s fist and unlearn, relearn and learn a better way. And thank God this little girl still thinks he’s a hero.
These are the Two Worlds I live in.
Colliding.
Colliding.
Colliding.
It must be hard sometimes. But you’re making parenthood like a wonderful journey fills with bad temper and fights but, as well, full of love and affection: a Beautiful Hell.
Pure.
OMG, too sweet. My eyes are watery.
I believe that I have been allowed the stewardship of two sons, and now two daughters-in-law so that I can see/feel what God sees/feels when He looks at me as His son. What a perspective.
And the cool part is, the kids remember the good stuff and forgive the bad. It is rewarding to see my sons as men functioning in their relationships/businesses and recognize the evidance of some of those moments you are now enjoying Todd, as now coming back to me with dividends. It was all worth the hell.
OH and just so we dont get too mushy here, Jane may, in fact, be animated but you, my friend, hold exclusive rights to “nutjob”.
JJM…thanks for that. I believe everything you wrote. Except the part about who occupies the Sole Office of Nujob in this house.