The Dying Year: New Frontier, Just Me My Own

You Are What You Own?

A few months before my divorce became final, my Ex was granted the home we shared, a home .

that previously belonged to my mom, and her second husband. I received a legal document informing me I was no longer allowed to enter the premises without her permission.

In addition, a friend had driven by the house, and noticed a trailer filled with garbage bags, and loose items, that were mine. By the time I called to make an inquiry they were gone.

I took tally of what I had:

Two duffle bags worth of casual clothes
a backpack
some books
about $400
and a car.

Then I took tally of what I didn't have:

a job ( I'd been a stay-at-home dad for the past 12 years)
a credit card
family help
a lawyer

Fuck.
Now what?

You're the frontier that surrounds you?

Something essential changed in me during the 12-year period I stayed home with my sons. I was 29 when it began, and 42 when it ended. Before I became a father, I had aspirations to teach and write. I was pursuing both. When considering the existential question of 'who I am' my answers aligned with my roles.

It was difficult to balance the pursuit of them after the birth of our first child. I threw in the towel after our third. Out manned by three sons, I surrendered to my life outside the home, and became what was needed in it.

I romanticized the frontier as a child, and hoped someday I'd be in one. In fact, I'd already begun preparing myself. I logged a 4-week solitary bike ride through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia at 22. I spent three weeks in the Denali Wilderness of Alaska at 25. And I kayaked Johnstone Strait with Killer Whales the year I became a Father.

No frontier but the new one.

The truth is, outside of deep space, and ocean canyons, no frontier remains. Not out there it doesn't. The reality settled deeper with every diaper I changed, or pouch of frozen breast milk I thawed. Every time I took my sons to the park or McDonald's or gymnastics I could count the number of dad's on my nose: 1. I was no longer certain of being a man.

Fast Forward three summers. We're on our way to the beach and everyone has a left shoe and a right one. We have juice boxes and cheese sticks and sammies and chips. We have a diaper bag so organized it could pass a military inspection. And we have a group of women who have become friends waiting for us. I'm halfway into my 12 years, and I found my frontier. It was in me, and it waited thirty years to be discovered.

There wasn't a single man I could ask how to do what I was doing. They could help with the details, with stuff like diapers, and nap time, and costumes, and binkies. But they couldn't assist me with a contemporary definition of a "Man". They couldn't reassure me I'd remain a Man if I successfully fulfilled the role of a woman.

The Father Returns

Either God's got a disturbing sense of humor, or he's a genius, I'm not sure. When our third child announced he was a boy I was thrilled. Three sons. Amazing. Then I stopped, and whispered it again, 'three..sons'. When I found myself alone for the first time that day I looked up, looked God right in the eye, and asked what the fuck he was thinking. Why did you give them to me? You know I'm broken, and now you're gonna make me live with this?

The God I talk to is enormously patient. And He can keep a secret. He's the kid on Christmas eve who's told he can open one present, and says 'no thank you' before excusing himself to go to bed. That kid kind of bugs me.

I didn't get an answer that night in the hospital, and I didn't get it all at once. It's been revealing itself for 18 years, and it's not done. God didn't answer me because he couldn't. He needed the answer to come from me. It's still hard for me to hear it.

I've been looking at my children through two sets of eyes. Mine are the primary observers. My dad's look on casually, from a distance. He's seen his son nurture three of his own. He's seen his son kneel next to each of his own as they passed through years 8, and 11, the years he beat me.

He's seen me measure the frailty within them, and the lack of hostility. And he saw me understand, truly understand, what it would take to harm so much trust, and innocence. It would take more pain than I've seen. It would take someone more broken. He saw me make space for forgiveness about things I'll never understand. My sons helped to heal me. Maybe somehow that healed us both.

He watched every hope I still carry about having a Father, get channeled into becoming one.
He watched us heal.

I'd forgotten things don't go the way you hope, that they go the way they're designed.
I remembered that some of us are stronger than others, that we can heal those who harmed us.
My sons will heal me someday.

Nothing is discarded

I came into my marriage damaged. I was led to it to heal. My life as a husband, and a father, demanded two things:

It demanded that I learn how to give love with more depth than I ever hoped to receive.
And it demanded that I lose everything I thought I needed so I would know all I need is me.

And then she provided my teachers. It's funny how someone throwing your stuff away in deserved anger becomes the invitation to who you want to become. It's funny how the lives you're assigned to look after are the ones that teach you how to look after yourself. It's funny how everything is right in the world, even when you think it's not.