Dad

Dad
It's 2am... I wake up almost every night. I have a dream that I can't put out of my head and I am wide-awake. Eventually, I am able to let exhaustion take over and I close my eyes again and go to sleep.

Tonight, as usual it is a dream about my boys.. Alex in particular, tonight he was talking to me before I was putting him to sleep. It was a different house.. I had never been there before and Alex looked so sad and scared, wondering if I would be there when he woke up, so he wasn't going to sleep.

About 5 years ago a friend asked me to describe myself... to write down a few words about me so I could write one of those internet dating ads. I could only think of one word... Dad... I was a Dad, my life revolved around being a Dad, about getting my boys.. fighting to see them.. fighting and fighting to talk to them.. my life was defined mostly by that fight with my ex wife to see my boys. I didn't realize just how much, until I tried to let that part go. When I realized that I was fighting a losing battle, but that doesn't stop the feelings inside that I wish... that I hope... that it could be, could have been different.

I struggle now, to define myself.

Am I a good husband? I know that I am good at my job, I know that... I have the knowledge base and can be praised for what I do at work.

tonight I woke up and there is a show on TV.. about rich kids and how they struggle with life. I guess it is hard for anyone to really have empathy for someone that has billions or multi millions of dollars, but they do struggle too.

So, when my wife asks me if I am happy... I am happy... I love her so much, and I do love our new life, our home and it's exciting to start fresh in a new place.

Just give me some strength.... Please God, tell me that these dreams aren't going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Please tell me that this is temporary, that in a year... it will be different. Or that when my boys are 14 and 16, they will have the courage to call me and talk to me and that they won't hate me.

It's the commercials on TV... families.. parents... I can't even listen to music on the radio anymore, because if there is a sad song.. I can't take it.

Last night I was talking to M, and I told her that I really should write a book about my life.

I could start it, with the feelings that I have right now. I have had difficulty finding out where I should start with my story.

Would I start my story in Connecticut? or Mexico? Arizona or Tulsa? Do I talk about my parents and their fights.. how I never felt loved when I was a kid? I have a very vivid memory, maybe it is a good thing to be able to recall events in your life as if they were being replayed on an 8mm projector... sure sometimes the film starts to melt and it gets fuzzy, but I can put it back together.

I went to 11 different schools before I graduated High School. I remember living through the 70s and seeing kids pass out in class from taking too many reds... pills. Those years.. the 70s were pretty eventful for me. Moving from Mexico to Arizona... going to a different school almost every year. I went to an experimental school in 1972, a project designed by hippies... a communal school, where the teachers allowed us to 'do our own thing' we designed our own curriculum... well, I was in 6th grade and for me, that meant doing nothing at all. That year shaped my educational habits for the rest of my educational years. I never really knew how to, or why to study. That year, I made love beads and learned out to sew and cook... and I excelled in logic class. :) really. After that, I went to a more traditional school, but never forgot that I could just do whatever I wanted really... I just had to get the grade.. and do it the way I wanted to.

I got pretty good grades in school, and can't remember one time when I actually did homework or even brought my books home from school. This went on, even through college. I attended classes, took a few notes that I would never look at again. I guess I trained my mind to remember what I wrote down and I got through college without working at it at all. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I really studied, what I could have done.

I am at this point in my life... where I don't feel my age, people around me would never and never do guess my age. I see myself as newly married, just starting out in life, maybe having a family. The people on my street with families are probably in their mid 30s and I don't feel older than them.

Last weekend, M and I went to some antique shops, looking for some ideas to decorate our new home. I was showing her how a record player worked. You used to stack the records on that little spindle, there... pull over this bar that would hold them steady and when the record was done, the stylus would pick up and the next record would drop... and the stylus would magically move over to the first song and start playing. Those little gaps three are where the songs are separated, you could try to drop your needle on the right song, but that could also put a scratch in the record... oh.. and there are songs on both sides of a record. She had never seen a record play like that. I didn't stop there, I explained how 8 tracks worked and even some things that were older than me.. things from the 50s but things that we used in our house when I was young. I remember when fiber optic lights came out and when lava lamps were new. This here, is a pocket camera, it uses a different kind of film and that over there was a very expensive caluclater when it came out. When I was in college, computers didn't have monitors, just green bar paper and the computer lab was in the basement of the building, becuase that is where the mainframe was. A computer was as big as this room right here.. and you had to back them up daily with these disks... not disketts or CDs.. they were big and they were in boxes and backing up a computer at night could take a few hours.

I decided to bring my Essential Clash album... CD set... with me on this trip. The last time I played it, M said.. that it sounded so 80s... yes.. it was the 80s.. why does that seem not so old to me? Maybe because I am old. Should I take pride in the fact that I know the words to most of the songs? That I sing... "I'm all lost in the supermarket... I no longer can shop happily, came here for a special offer... guaranteed personality...... I'm all lost..." or should I just hum it ?

I lived through the punk years and smile when I see Avril Lavigne.. and her punk style...sometimes I want to pull out my box of remembrances.... my white creepers from 1982, my first communion candle from 1968, my grandmothers pencil box, my high school yearbook from 1979.. I was "most likely to be famous" because of my performances in the school talent shows.. and local comedy shows. I actually did a stand up routine in High School. But... that box of remembrances.. was one of the things that I forgot... to take when I left.. and my ex wife told me that she threw them out, along with "the rest of your crap".

Is there a book out there to be written about a Divorced Dad, who was tortured for 12 years by his ex wife and how he tries to escape.. and how hard it is to leave behind his children.

My dream tonight was that Alex was being sexually abused by his grandfather.. the one that lives at his house.. and that before.. he had to be very careful.. and now that I am out of the picture.. Alex is his prey.. that my ex wife is the way she is because my ex father in law abused her... even though this is all in my dreams.. I can't put it out of my head right now... I see Alex the last time I saw him.. how thin he looked... how nervous.. how he said, "I miss you too Dad" I remember how much he didn't want me to move.. he hugged his stuffed animals that last night in our old house.. how he just started to love his room with Andy.. and how... I have to try very hard to put this out of my head.... How I have to try to put this out of my head....

In this dream.. Alex was begging me to come back... and then.. somehow I was fast forwarded to the future.. the boys weren't that young anymore.. they were 14 and 16 and they hated me... for leaving them with those evil people. "how could you do that Dad?, sure you saved yourself, but what about us"

I'll try to go to bed now.

I put my life into these parts... There is this big part of me right now that is very happy. I have a loving wife, that I love very much. I have a beautiful house and I love my job. My family misses me and calls me on a regular basis, in some ways they don't seem that far away. There is this part of me that says... You know Chris.. she told you once that the boys aren't really yours... and that is why she treats you the way she does.. She lied to me about everything.. in the end.. even my next door neighbor told me that she knew that she was a lesbian.. and "how could you not have known?" I start to realize that I needed to save myself.. that I never could win.. that I would just continue to torture myself.. with that fight if I stayed...

So.. if you add it all up. I am happy.. and these bits.. where the pain comes in.. commercials on TV with Moms and Dads feeling closer to their kids because of their cell phones... well, maybe that pain will go away.

The thing is... I have felt pain in my life.. I lost my sister... I have never ever felt more loved in my life than I do right now.

I want to accept that love and to make my wife the happiest woman in the world.

I truly believe that our entire life on this planet is just one big learning experience. We learn from each other, and everything... EVERYTHING happens for a reason. Everything that has happened to me and continues to happen to me, shapes me into who I am today.