Tag: fatherhood

Out of Balance

One night before bed, my wife came and sat next to me.

“I know you’re tired,” she said. “But when you get that tired, the way you check out is to be really short with us, and like we are bothering you. We haven’t been spending a lot of time with our son, and that’s how he sees you at night.”

Of course, she was right. Looking back, I can see how I responded with one-word answers or a tone of disinterest. Our nights became about checking out by sitting on the couch watching TV while our son played video games online with his friends in the basement. Dinner time was mostly apart, as well, us watching TV while he ate and watched his iPad.

It was too easy to fall into this routine. The long winter nights, the lingering pandemic, the burnout from keeping everything together leeched our energy and motivation. We checked out long before it was time to check out, and anything that required exerting effort or interest was met with resentment and disdain.

After my wife called me out, I felt ashamed and guilty. I used the excuse of letting him play with his friends to justify my behavior. “He’s doing what he wants to be doing, so it’s ok to check out.” But it was just that…an excuse.

I’m glad that he has friends now from school and has more independence to hang out with them virtually. It’s what he wants to do and what he should be doing, especially after many years of isolation.

It also comes after so many years where we were always “on,” too. We were the caregivers of a child with epilepsy, with all the care and worry that required. We were his emotional regulators when he couldn’t do it himself. We were his teachers and his entertainment when he was too sick to attend school. That was in addition to trying to manage our own lives, jobs, and relationships.

But moving from one extreme to another threw everything out of balance. That’s not to say that the amount of time needs to be equally portioned. My son is getting older, and we’re not his only source of entertainment or care anymore. He should be spending more time with friends and more time with himself. But that doesn’t mean those two things should be the only things in his life or that they are excuses not to be a parent.

Or a husband. Sitting on the couch next to my wife isn’t spending time together. We’re relaxing but not interacting. We just happen to be occupying the same space and doing the same thing.

As in most situations, awareness is the first step to change. I’m grateful to my wife for pointing out where I was and how I was responding to our son. Since then, I’ve been more aware of my tone, and we’ve also started having more family dinners, more walks in the neighborhood, and more ping pong tournaments in the basement. My son still plays with his friends, and my wife and I still veg out on the couch watching television. But, now, those aren’t the only things we do.

Slow Down

I’m standing with my left foot on the edge of the baseline. I bounce the bright yellow tennis ball a few times with my left hand while my right hand dips low, holding my racquet. I’m ready, so I steady the tennis ball before tossing it high into the air slightly in front of me. I rock backward on my heel, then forward, lifting my racquet to meet the ball’s descent. Contact.

“No, no, no,” my instructor says through his thick French accent. He points upward at the ball that has soared high enough to qualify as a space flight, and that still hasn’t completed reentry.

“Too fast. Watch.”

He takes my place on the baseline and tosses a ball into the air. His movement is controlled and intentional. The racquet methodically completes its arc and makes contact with the ball, sending it across the net where it lands in front of the service line.

“This is you.”

Again, he tosses a ball into the air. But instead of the slow, intentional movement, the racquet disappears into a blur of speed and sends the ball crashing into the fence on the far side of the court.

“When you go slow, you are present…you can control. When you go fast, you can’t.”

“Story of my life, ” I think to myself.

I’ve never been good at slowing down. I’m nervous and anxious and always feel like there is something I should be doing. I’ve created lists upon unending lists of the things that I need to do. Not “want” to do. Need. Must. Obligated to. Compelled to.

But there is only so much time, so I race from one thing to the next. Sometimes, I don’t quite complete the task that I’m doing or do it as well as I could have, but, usually, I don’t look back to check. Checking slows me down. And there is still so much to do.

Often, I don’t remember details because, as it turns out, I’m not there at all. And that, I realize, is part of the problem, especially when there are other people involved. What is the point of doing something with my wife and my son if the goal is to do it so that I can move on to the next thing? I’m not there with them if I can’t slow down enough to be present with them.

None of us knows how much time we have in this world. With my son’s condition, that is a fact of which I am too well aware. It should serve as a reminder that it is the quality of the time we spend together that matters more than the quantity of the things we do. But, as my wife has pointed out too many times lately, I haven’t always been showing up that way. I know she’s right.

Awareness is the first step of change. Acceptance is the second. I’m working on that part. I know it’s time to slow down.

The instructor backs away, and I retake my place on the baseline. I bounce the ball a few times before tossing it into the air. I raise my racket slowly towards the ball. Deliberately. Intentionally. I can feel that my arm is extended. I can feel it when the racquet makes contact with the ball. I watch as the ball flies over the net and lands in the box. It’s a different experience. And it’s the same type of experience I want more of with the people around me, too.

Yes, And…

We didn’t ask for this. One day, we woke up the same way we always did, and that night we were walking back to our hotel room from the hospital in a strange city after my son had his first seizure.

That was six years ago.

For many of those years, I fought what was happening. I didn’t want it, and I thought if I resisted it that it would go away. I looked at what was happening, and I led with “no.”

That “no” manifested as resentment and anger. I wasn’t angry at my son. I was angry at epilepsy. I was angry at seizures. I was angry at the medication and the side effects. I was angry at the universe for doing this to my little boy. The seizures, the meds, the side effects. The impact on his future.

Even though I wasn’t angry at my son, based on the way I was acting, to him, it probably felt like I was. I worried that he was internalizing what I was projecting. For years, he walked around saying, “I’m sorry” every time I corrected him or asked him to do something.

I tried to change how I was showing up for him. Instead of fighting what was happening with a “no,” I moved on to a “yes, but…” I admitted that epilepsy was happening, but made excuses so that I wouldn’t have to give in to that reality fully. “Yes, this is happening, but someday it won’t.”

The “but” in “yes, but…” wasn’t about giving up hope. It was about a lack of acceptance. There was still that resistance that got worse as things with my son got better. Instead of a bump in the road, every setback, every new symptom, every increase in seizures felt like falling off a cliff.

That falling, too, surfaced as frustration and resentment. I had little tolerance when things weren’t right. I would snap when the smallest thing went wrong. I thought that I could correct our way out of this if I could get everything perfect. I kept trying to control and change the situation into something that it was never going to be.

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Viktor E. Frankl

In the world of improv comedy, there is a concept of “yes, and…” The idea is that a participant takes what is given and adds to and expands it. Instead of “no” (the brick wall) or “yes, but..” (the resistance ), the “yes” encourages acceptance and the “and” expands.

Yes, my son has epilepsy, and he is amazing. Yes, he has seizures most days, and he also goes to school and plays baseball and loves Fortnite. Yes, we are on a different path than we thought we were going to be, and the future is full of new possibilities.

I’m not going to lie, even as I typed the sentences above, I struggled to think of the “and…” My brain isn’t wired to find the positive in impossibly difficult situations. But the more I do it, the easier it will become. The more I practice, the more my brain will automatically find the possibility.  I can’t change the situation, but I can change how I approach it and how I engage with him. Because he truly is amazing, and he needs to feel that from me.

Yes, my son has epilepsy, and I am the luckiest dad there ever was.