I sat in the parking garage this morning and cried. I’m not so sure it was frustration as it was relief. I had been thinking about today’s Hump Day posting and how I could express anything at all that I felt inside, the events that led up to today, or anything that really matters to me at the moment. I thought, “I’m afraid to breathe. I’m afraid to move. I’m afraid that I’ll wake up and this will all be a bad dream.” And how many times I’ve wished that I would wake up and this would all be a very bad dream. My soul has been ripped apart by selfishness. My light has been darkened by deception. My love has been smothered to death by spite.

But there is hope in the breaking dawn.

And then I heard this on the radio …

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself
Lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before

The irony was as amusing as it was painful.

And I lost it on the final verse pulling into the parking garage, but I knew the direction I needed to go today.

Afraid to Breathe

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and a trepidation in my heart. Was it real? Was it over? If I breathe will it dislodge this truce or peace or whatever it is that just happened? Could I trust my assumptions based on the observations of evidence or was it merely another deceptive calm before another violent storm?

I’m paralyzed but yet not comatose. Did I make my point finally? Was I clear enough? My intents are honorable even if the results could be wildly misunderstood[1]. But if I open my mouth to breathe, will that all blow away? Will it just be another episode in a season of bad reruns?[2]

Is it safe to admit that I’m still afraid to breathe? I’ve been gasping for air for so long, that the chill in the night air cuts through my soul and leaves me bitter and cold. But there is a warmth in the knowledge of freedom. The blood begins to circulate again. The scent of love hangs ever so loosely in the air like a potpourri of variety and humanity, of passion and possibility, of safety and new experience.

Dared to Move

I’m glad she has a new family for the holidays. No one deserves to be alone and without family. We are spending our time, starting today, with old friends and new friends and, over the rest of the holidays, the core of our possibilities. We are living our future-now. We are creating that future-now, minute by minute, day by day, even moment by moment. Jinx was sitting at the door this morning putting on his shoes as I came in from walking Zoe. He looked up at me with the biggest grin and said, “I love you, Dad! I had a great dream last night about you and me and Zoe going on vacation together.”[3] It just doesn’t get any better than this. He is excited about tonight. He’s excited about tomorrow morning. He’s excited about ice skating on Friday[4]. He’s excited because he’s decided that his mind is a T-Rex and his soul/spirit is a Velociraptor. I just wish I could remember what conversation precipitated that decision on his part. He is child: hear him roar.

But now what? If I have been truly handed my wish here, now what? Am I truly, now, beholden to no-one? Could this be real? Finally?

I know, first, that we will memorialize this day[5] next year by burning four reams of paper and moving forward into Year One[6] without defenses, without weapons, and without the terror of betrayal hanging over our heads. But where I thought I used to trust easily enough, I have learned to be suspicious of everything, of everyone, of every movement that is not my own. I will hold my swords in check for the moment until I am secure in my own mind that this is not merely another illusion woven to pacify the rage. Should I be betrayed again, it will be the last time and I will bring both of them down so hard and so fast it will sever all connections permanently and without recourse. For now, though, I have hope of a future peace and reconciliation—though I am quite sure that it will be very different than I had originally hoped. There might even be an opening for friends. Only time will tell should this future-now remain intact as it stands today.

I know, second, that I’ve been handed a gift. A very precious gift. No matter what anyone will say—and I have heard it all—I am grateful for this. I am humbled by this opportunity. No. Admittedly, this is not what I had in mind for the rest of my life nor what I had in plan for my life. But it is what it is and I accept that I am both an jackass over this and a very passionate father who would do anything to protect his child. I can only regret that I was not this passionate and this insistent over Ian. I should have listened. I should have done the right thing then. And it should be absolutely no surprise to anyone that I would not make the same mistake twice.

But if this is truly real, if this is truly happening the way I asked, then I have twice the burden of responsibility because now I’m faced with the responsibility of truly sharing the life of a child with others in ways that are daunting and difficult and open to incredible amounts of criticism. Am I doing things right? Am I holding his best interests at heart? Am I ensuring that our life remains an open book, hell or high water, paradise or prosperity? Will we get slaughtered every time we stumble or hurt ourselves trying to climb another mountain? Will we ever hear praise for our successes and our happiness no matter how that is found?

We will not hide from anyone.

But we have set our eyes on the east, accepted the dare, and have begun to move again.

And what a glorious ecstasy it will be when we can see the sun through the first rays of morning and the ocean of experience is wide open for exploration and rest.

A Reluctant Dream Backup Plan Within a Dream

I’ve always known that I wanted a child to raise on my own, beholden to no-one, solitary and yet never really alone. Women have always been just a temporary expedient to that goal.

Until I met her: that One that would alter my life forever and change my worldview so dramatically that one might suggest that I’ve lost my religion over and over again because of her. I’ve compromised more in my life for her than for any other reason. She was the dream of a reality that I never knew existed until I was living that reality in her arms and in her heart.

And then my dream of being a single father turned into a reluctant backup plan in the case of disaster that I thought could never happen. Bumps and bruises, scrapes and sprains: all part of a relationship that is ever evolving and growing and pushing the boundaries of the possible.

I was wrong.

And now here I sit with a reluctant backup plan in my hands reshaping that dream from a nightmare that I didn’t even see coming. Hindsight is 20/20, to be sure, but I was blindsided by the trauma and forced into a corner to fight back with tooth and with nail.

But this is a precious child here. And I have an awesome responsibility now, alone, to do the right thing and raise him so that everyone is proud of the way he turns out. I can no longer point a finger and say, “… just like your mother.” I can no longer point a finger and say,  “… fucked up role models.” I can no longer point a finger and say, “… bad behavior of others at home.” I can no longer point a finger and say, “… not my doing.” They say that one should be careful what they wish for. No shit, right? But this is my original dream in motion. I accept the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the successes and the failures. I accept this wholeheartedly.

How Jinx turns out in life will be my indictment as a parent—for better or for worse—and no one else’s.

I can live with that.

And I am grateful for this gift I’ve been handed with trust and love (whether or not it’s seen as such by anyone else, I see it that way) and will honor this gift as best I can.

Namaste.

innervox

1. … or even maligned by the wrong impressions or wrong interpretations or just malicious mischief of the malevolent [↩]
2. There is a reason why I consider those who have more television hours than literary hours to be substandard individuals. Literature opens the mind no matter how many times you reread something. Television merely offers never-ending reruns of canned laughter and unimpressive drama which is then played out in real life as if some kind of template for reality. [↩]
3. This is significant, to me at least, in that he had his first nightmare in the apartment night before last. [↩]
4. Granted, I’m going to have to wipe out my savings again because I just don’t make enough to pay all this crap that I was left with to pay alone. But I’ll manage. I know people with less resources and worse paychecks doing just fine. Once we get rid of some of the carry-over debt from R/ED™ we’ll be just fine. But most of that is what is actually killing my funds. Well, that—and the awful timing of when bills actually hit. A budget looks great on paper and would be awesome if one could just pay everything one time a month, all at the same time, and be done with it. But that’s not how things work. Though I do wonder if it’s possible to contact everyone that wants to get paid and rearrange billing dates so that it is the same date every single month …? Hmm… It might mean having to pay a little extra one month to catch up or something, but I wonder …! [↩]
5. Actually, it would be 12 December. [↩]
6. We enter, right now, our Year Zero. [↩]