Broken

Sometimes it is hard being a father. Not because of the responsibilities, although there are certainly those, but because of the expectations. I was wrestling with Chaucer on the floor tonight and I knelt down on one of Henry's Bakugons. It snapped under my knee, cut right through my pants and into my kneecap. Henry saw it happen, and lets say, it wasn't a good scene... for hours afterward. I felt like such a heel. I know its only a little toy, but it was very meaningful to him and I couldn't fix it. I told him I would buy him another, but Henry gets really attached to things. I do too. I remember crying for days because my parents switched out my bureau for another one. I understand the attachment thing.

I went out the next day to buy some superglue and fixed it in about thirty seconds. I told him and he casually said "OK." Like it was no big deal... like I hadn't tried to comfort him about it for two hours the night before. Like I hadn't swam in guilt all night and rushed out the next day to make everything better. "OK."  It is the expectations that get me. He values me as the person that can make things right. If I do so, it is his expectations that are met and everything is simply the way it should be. It isn't an amazing act of self deprivation... it is the expectation. And it is the way that I want it to be as well. I want to be that person... but I can feel the foreshadowing. When I can't run out and glue it back together. When I do something that really disappoints in a very real and harming way. I know that I am capable of that.  I am dreading those days.

Until then, perhaps it is in these little things that he learns I am human...fallible... able to mess things up. Maybe it is what he needs to be learning so when I do step into it in a big way, he is able to see through the circumstance and into my humanity.

db