Fatherhood: Loneliness

The greatest irony of having a new person join your life forever is how lonely you can become. Playing off my last post, life is more lonely ow than ever before. I have a son (still fun to say), but so much has changed that I have felt pangs of loneliness that I haven't felt since high school (which so sucks).

I thrive on social gatherings. I need them. It is a rare day that I will say, "You know, I want to stay by myself for tonight." During my first four years of marriage, my wife and I have been social butterflies flitting between groups every weekend, and often during the week. We'd stay up late, play games, have 24-hour movie festivals. Now the boy has arrived, and so much has changed.

I'll never say that I'm not thrill to have my son. I'd take him in a heartbeat over anybody else I know. But there is no denying that he has been a handicap to our social activities. This is no surprise. Yet, I am still stunned by the magnitude of the impact he has had. V mixes well with our friends, they love him much. But what drives me bonkers is knowing we have to go home early and that I know we've been left out of other plans. This is the high school feeling all over again. "Don't you like me? I thought we were cool." Bleh.

As mentioned in my other post, I know there is no malice being slid back and forth, but the brain and heart can take off in all sorts of different directions and pull your logic and reason with them.

I mentioned in my last post that there will soon be another father in my social arena. This thrills me to no end. If nothing else, these posts are a way to sort through my thoughts and goofy feelings. But before too long, I'll be able to actually have a conversation about them. For fatherhood is the best thing that has ever happened to me. But it has been the most trying experience in ways I never would have expected.

My Own Road

Satan's being a brain fuggler again.

Through the last month, I've felt it--the devil is messing with my head. March is usually in my top four months of the year, but not so this year. Instead it has been a month of panic, guilt, depression, and meltdown. Reasons for the turmoil are already being assembled in future postings, but one of the main reasons is this--I'm on my own road.

For me, sharing a common human experience is one of the most important realizations for me. It's what drew me to literature, writing, and language. Growing up, I shied away from most literature because I saw it as the musings of the pompous and snotty--pricks that could never have an understanding of what I had to deal with in life. It wasn't until college when a brilliant professors made it all click for me, spun that magical thread that showed me how I was connected to everybody, that out there, somewhere, hundreds, if not thousand and even millions, of people know what I go through daily (sort of like I Heart Huckabees, but less crazy). Lately, however, I've been feeling a lot more of the solitude of life.

I dealt with this when my wife was pregnant. For this reason, I loved lamaze classes because it let me connect with people, I rediscovered that thread. Now, that thread seems to have disappeared. Being the only expecting couple among my friends was tricky. What my wife dealt with was unknowable by any of the other wives, and the anxiety of becoming a father was unknowable among the husbands.

It's happening again now that my son is here. It's interesting to see how the dynamic of the group has changed. Some of it may have been unavoidable even without a child, but with a car seat in the back and a diaper bag across the shoulder, it feels more obvious. None of the changes were intentional or malicious, but they are very real and quite odd to deal with.

As the only father in my social circle (but there's another on the way. Yippee.), I feel I am on my own road that is heading in not a different direction, just a different route. Maybe I'm taking Route 66 while the others are blazing along the interstate. I don't know. Whatever it is, though, I feel a unique tug and direction to my life right now that I'm not sensing from the others I hang out with. More of this to come in soon-coming, perhaps slightly depressing posts.