Me and The Kid

A mutual friend of A's and mine has A's son for a vacation in the woods and has been posting pictures of the kid on Facebook. It always sends a jolt of love and joy through me to see him looking happy, well, well-tended and with that little glint of gentle mischief he always has in his eye. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy. 

Not being with people one loves with all one's might is a...strange place to be. The well-considered ellipse here is large and contains multitudes. There's a lot that could go in there-- whole hearts, space-time folds, "better to have loved and lost" platitudes, an endless tenderness that rings like all the bells in the world, an aching and melting sadness that still sends unasking generous best wishes across all time and space. More than that even, believe it or not. To see a world in three grains of sand. That's what's in that particular ellipse. 

The kid and I had glorious times, in spite of my not knowing how to parent in A's style at first especially. A's style is rooted in Montessori ideals, grounded in treating children with respect at all times, always framing corrections in positive terms, always making space for the kid to feel what he feels, think what he thinks and be himself. This was such a weird gut punch of disorienting ways of being an adult with a child that it took a lot of getting used to. It was not how I was raised. It brings to mind this passage from Terry Gorski's Addictive Relationships: Why Love Goes Wrong in Recovery:

"A functional family of origin is a family unit or home that basically equips a child with the necessary emotional, intellectual, and relationship skills to deal with life as an adolescent and as an adult. In a functional family, we learn to recognize what we feel, put labels on our feelings, and then tell other people about our feelings. Conversely, we gain the capacity to care about what others feel, to listen to their feelings, and respond to them. 

A functional family also prepares children to cope intellectually with the world. It teaches them how to think clearly and accurately without major denial. It teaches them how to see reality more or less for what it is. And, finally, a healthy family teaches children how to relate in a productive manner through relationships with other human beings."

A is definitely providing that fundamental ground for the kid, as far as I could tell-- of course, not having any direct experience of it, I wouldn't really know. And as is the case with every mother everywhere, there's just a shit ton of shit about A's mothering I could shittily criticize if I were full of absolute shit, but I won't. 

The most profound alchemy of being the kid's "fake dad" (what he called me) was that I rediscovered my own little boy. In so many things the kid did or said, I was startled by the sudden appearance of who I was when I was his age. The kid and I share vigilant awareness of the feelings of others, a tender heart, the ability to forgive like a motherfucker, a mischievous sense of humor, an appreciation for the beauty of nature, perfectionism and a tendency to be too hard on ourselves, a love for dumb toys like balloon rockets that make farting noises and radio controlled helicopters, a fine musical sensibility and a sort of basic enjoyment of being embodied on this nutso planet. The kid and I met each other in a lot of places. And that meant I met my own little kid in a lot of places too. 

And what I discovered was that my so-called "inner child" feels a lot of things that he hasn't ever really had the space to express. I resist the whole John Bradshaw "inner child" metaphor and framework for self encounter, but who gives a shit what I resist, really? In spite of its cornball sentimentality, I had a direct, sustained experience over several years of coming into contact with my "inner child" through encounters with the kid. I am sure this is the case, consciously or unconsciously, with all parents. 

The process was one of opening to unconditional love for the kid and thereby starting to find it for my little self. In the best of ways it seems that solid and loving, reliable parenting requires that we also re-parent ourselves. The unmediated tendency to repeat automatically the less constructive parenting styles of our role models (and I say this absolutely without judgment, but just observing and describing) is perhaps the default setting-- and for some of us, we face that weird re-enactment impulse with a degree of horror and frustration. 

So, like many parents, I consciously set out to be a kind of father figure to the kid that I myself never had. I was aided in the enterprise by A, who is very consistent and holds an admirable space for the kid. I was also aided by a few years of counseling, my program of recovery and in some weird ways, my distance from the kid created by my being his "fake dad."

You must realize, dear reader, that before this kid became such a huge part of my life, I had Bukowskian levels of utter disdain for the idea of being a father. ("It seemed to me that I had never met another person on earth as discouraging to my happiness as my father, and it appeared that I had the same effect on him."--Chuck B). I recognized later that this disdain was largely born of fear. Mostly, fear of failure. Fear that I would get trapped by a love that, when I saw it in others, looked like it could kill them. Lots of other fears. Maybe even paramount: the fear of being an asshole to some kid who definitely didn't deserve it. 

But the kid was perfect for me. When I did fuck up, he forgave. When he had feelings and had the audacity to express them, I learned. When I did things well for him, he was openly appreciative. He let me give him my time, my conversation. We became real friends, even with the distinct and healthy boundary of our separate roles. I helped teach him how to read, how to cook, how to tie his shoes, how to do homework, how to accept mistakes and move on, how to play the drums (a little bit), how to hike on a trail (I remember one trip to Madera Canyon when he was quite young, maybe 5, and he had to learn how to look down and walk forward, how to manage rocks and obstacles but also keep an eye on the bigger picture, and I had forgotten for the thousandth time how things that I took for granted were actually learned skills, as he fell and cried and fell and cried, but, like me, stubbornly refused to give up). 

Simply, being his "fake dad" was one of the finest things to happen in my life. I so painfully miss it. After A ended the partnership, I offered to pick him up every Thursday, help him with his homework, take him for some dinner and then get him to the house in time for his karate class at 6. Thursday nights were always a little on the pushed side, trying to get these things squared away in that tempo that all families with 8 year olds have. A thanked me for my kind offer (I think those were the exact words) and said she would think about it and never got back to me. 

I've not had the chance to say goodbye to him. I've not had an opportunity to provide him with any sort of continuity or reassurance. That has fallen entirely to his mother, who lied to him after the breakup and told him it was mutual-- that I wanted the split as much as she did. "I told him we had been walking side by side for a long time and agreed to walk separately." I disagreed with this but respected it-- she's the boy's mother. I don't think it's ever good to lie to kids. Of all the kids I have ever known, this kid would have been able to understand. Sometimes people want different things. That's life. I'll be okay. No need to worry about me. And I'll never forget you. That's all that I would have said. But I haven't had the chance. 

So in all the tumble and tangle of losing everything, by far, this all has ended up hurting the worst. I've been through breakups and loss of home before. I had a much loved stepdaughter for a few years in the '90s but was fucking clueless at the time. But I went into parenting the kid this time with a whole heart and I loved him like my own-- almost, almost. He changed me to the core. And damn it if he hasn't made me now think about it-- what if I were a father? Is it even still possible at my age? Situationally, I mean. Of course it's biologically possible, I assume. And I never, ever wanted it. I never thought I did anyway. I was always one of those people who could say, with complete confidence, "Oh no, I never wanted a kid. You go though!" Now the thought haunts me regularly. Along with words I rarely have ever said in my mind (I am a PhD student at 55, after all)-- too late. Too late. 

One never knows. But. 

The woman I've fallen for so suddenly is a fiercely shining mother to her kids and of course that's one of the main things I want to hold in sacred space, no matter what. It's funny that one of the things I love most about her keeps us apart. That's life sometimes.