The past few weeks I haven’t been sleeping well.
It’s mostly my fault, turning to the phone when I get the slightest bit restless, which is the worst thing a person can do when trying to get to sleep.
And then there is the pesky new habit of waking way too early (like 4 in the morning) and not being able to get back to sleep, which is the scariest indicator of age I’ve had in a while.
The other night it was merely a bad dream. Well, maybe not bad, just slightly disturbing.
I was in my childhood bedroom waiting for a boy to look in my window and find me. Enticing him with a lamp, I flash the light to tell him to climb up the wall and come inside. My Dad is somehow onto me and waits for the boy to arrive. I flash the light and the boy is there – just as my Dad bursts in and goes for him. I scream at him, ‘Don’t, it’s just a teddy bear!’ and suddenly the boy has actually turned into a huge teddy bear, the kind that my brother used to beat up at Suzie’s house. The dream ends, and I wake a little after three in the morning. It leaves me flummoxed and searching for meaning. Dad’s visits aren’t usually filled with such conflict, and suddenly my perspective changes as I lay in bed and dwell upon things while trying to get to sleep again.
With eyes that are the same age as my Dad’s when I was about two, I see now that he was merely being a good Dad – a tad overprotective and overbearing, with a delivery that may have been a bit too rough and jarring, but at its core was love, and wanting his child to be ok.
It reminded me of the day in real life when he yelled at my friend Jeff for dunking the basketball in my brother’s new hoop. It was markedly lower than the standard basketball hoop, and such a circumstance attracted the boys of the neighborhood, who were drawn in by my brother’s notice. They took turns dribbling the ball down the driveway then jumping into the air and dunking it like [insert famous basketball star of the 80’s here since I was gay and unaware]. Jeff had come down from his home on Van Dyke and was mid-dunk when my Dad, to my embarrassment, shame and chagrin (because I knew I would be mocked for it) charged out and began yelling at them not to do that. It was noisy and in his mind dangerous for them to use the hoop that way, and though the delivery was loud and unnecessary, it was another form of protection – our own and Jeff’s – he didn’t want an injured kid any more than he wanted a broken hoop after just one day of being erected.
I see a similar conundrum when my brother yells at his kids. Part protection, part overreaction, part worry and part fear. The terror of having kids of his own, and finally knowing firsthand how our father must have felt. The additional loss of control in a life that must have felt a little uncontrollable and unfair, all those years growing up with the comparisons between us both. The impossible paradox of love, and wanting to protect your child so much that it brings out an anger that can only be founded from fear. Love, in all its forms, always so troublesome and fickle and infuriating, always so worth the risk of making oneself unliked by your own children if it means keeping them safe, even if they never knew that’s all you were trying to do.
I see my Dad differently now, in a way I wish I had seen when he was alive. I see my brother and friends who are also fathers a little differently too.
I am constantly at awe and wonder at love, and awake at night typing this out on the phone so I don’t forget.
