Trust

Tags

anger, family, fatherhood, life, marriage issues, Nate, parenting

Parenthood must mean being able to accept that you are a complete and total fool.  I am over qualified.

Remember my last blog, the one where I talked about my son taking a trip to Lake Geneva to meet a friend, then go watch girls they know from summer camp play in a volleyball tournament?

I forget that every teenager at one time or another is going to lie to their parent(s).  Am I wrong or am I right?  All I know is that there might have just been a time or two that I deceived my own parents when I was a teenager.

Paybacks are a… BITCH.

Late Saturday night, Nate called me to ask if he could stay overnight with his friend in Lake Geneva.  It was 9:30, late enough that I thought it best that he did not drive home in the dark, so I reminded him that I did not want to go all weekend without my car and I wanted him home early the next morning.  Bedtime came for me and I rested peacefully knowing that my son was safe.

I was roused from my sleep around 1:30 in the morning by a frantic wife, babbling about how I had made a mistake by restricting our son’s phone so he would not be able to place a call after midnight.  She yelled at me to give her the phone number for our cell carrier so she could change that.

Oh, and then she told me that Nate was calling her from a Walmart parking lot in Grinnell, Iowa, nearly 5 hours away from our home in the western Chicago suburbs.  He was calling from the Walmart manager’s phone.

She kept yelling at me as I stumbled downstairs to get my PC and check the status of his phone via our cell phone carrier’s website.  Nate was telling a fib.  He was not restricted on the weekend.  Truth was, he had ignored my admonition to take his phone charging cord with him.  His phone battery was nearly dead.

His plan was to sleep overnight in the Walmart parking lot.  He needed money.. because he actually had not saved his money as he had told us.  He needed gas because the gas tank was nearly empty.

The girl from camp lives in Grinnell, Iowa.  The things we boys do for love.

Do I need to say that I was angry?  I grabbed the keys to Miriam’s car, muttering threats that the boy would never ever drive my car again.  I also had muttered something not too kind when my wife was yelling from the top of the stairs, something I had to apologize for before I left to go find the prodigal.  It was 2 AM.

I arrived in Grinnell a little before 7 AM on Sunday.  Good thing it was a long drive because I had time to think about things, decide that being angry would only hurt me.  So I found Nate at the Walmart, knocked on the window to get his attention, asked him how he was doing and what he planned on doing.

“I’m going to church with her in a few hours, then head home.  Are you going to make me come home?”

“No, you’re here and even though I probably should, I am not going to ruin this for you.  I am going to go with you to a gas station, fill this car with gas, then give you some cash for food and in case you need more gas to get home.  We’ll talk about this when you get home.”

And that’s what I did.  I was angry, did my best to control the anger, may have even been a bit too nice to him.  We got the gas and the money, I said good bye, and turned back to Chicagoland in Miriam’s car.  I got home at 1 PM, headed up to bed, slept 2 hours.  Miriam was gone when I woke, didn’t get home until Nate got home — at 10:30 that night.

Yesterday I spent some time talking to my parents about it, then talked to Miriam.  We decided on a punishment, then had the talk with Nate last night.  No car privileges until October and future trips will be limited.

OK, looks like I call him my boy, not my young man, for a while longer.

On a positive note — he lied, but wasn’t getting into trouble.  I tried to give him credit for that when I talked to him.

Until next time….

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I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream

Tags

anger, faith, God, life, marriage, marriage issues, relationships

I need to scream.  I am emotionally spent and I have no outlet.  I need to be comforted and hugged, but the one I thought would be there for me when I need her touch took that away from me a long time ago.. and she is the source of my frustration.

Where do you go when you need to scream?  What do you do?

I want to know.

Do you moan to God like David, at times feeling like God has rejected you?  I can relate.  I pray for relief, for change, and it seems like I am praying for naught.  My prayers feel empty.  I have yet to dance naked before God and everyone, like David did in his celebration.

Maybe that’s the answer?

Naaaaaa.

Do you spill your anger out on the people around you, the poison seeping from your pores, dripping from your tongue?  My mood threatens to turn black when the screams are trapped inside me, so much that I wish I could run from myself.  Instead, I run to a mirror, witness the distressed man that stares back at me, darkness lurking in his eyes, tears pooling.  Often enough, I am able to leave him there.

A bicycle provides escape for a time, each frustration shaved away as the pedals turn beneath me.  There was a time when the bicycle was the only outlet that I needed.  There are times when that is still the case, but more and more the screams stay with me.

I am not a violent man.  I can be an angry man, a man I have learned to fight simply because I know that I don’t handle the angry man very well.  Never am I tempted to strike out in an attempt to release the screams.  I am afraid of what might happen if I did.  I want to be angry with my words, but I don’t like to do that, so I hide my words away more often than not.  So I need to scream.  I want to scream.

I can’t.

I want to scream so loud that it all goes away.  The pain.  The want.  The sacrifice.  The woman who complains and takes, who gives so little back.

In a moment, I will retreat to an empty bed.  I will wake up to a still empty bed.

And I will live my day craving the opportunity to scream.

Some day it will happen.

 

Splash

Tags

anger, car shopping, conflict, fatherhood, positive stuff

I am sulking right now.  I am trying to decide what kind of father I am.  At this very moment, I am upstairs doing what I wanted to start ninety minutes ago, which was write three blogs to wind down the weekend.  There have been all kinds of thoughts bouncing around in my head for days, one blog already half written, with no time to write.  Some times that would be a bad thing, but the last few days have been really good, days where the pieces of my marriage have felt like a few have come back together.  Believe me, that is a miracle.  Having no time to write was a good thing.

The last ninety minutes have been what has become typical for my family — the last dregs of a relaxing, peaceful, even healing weekend destroyed by dealing with a teenage son.  If he put the same energy into his schoolwork as he does fighting the responsibility of doing it, he would be an excellent student.  He is bright and intelligent, but won’t do the work.  Three C and four D grades on his Fall semester grade report show that.  So now I am pushing him, no longer taking his word that the necessary work is getting done, and he hates it.  Band is one of the easiest classes in school to get an A in, yet he has an F right now.  What have we been fighting with him to do for the last ninety minutes?  We have been trying to get him to do a 20 minute online sight reading assignment for band, plus another 10 minutes of practice to put into his practice log.

Finally, I said that this lack of caring has got to stop.  The boy looked at me, called me an idiot, then threw a full disposable plastic bottle of water at me.  Without thinking, I caught the bottle with my throwing hand and whipped it back at him, hitting him square in the forehead and covering him with cold water.  He then rushed at me to try to tackle me and I shoved him to the floor.  The kid is as tall as I am and outweighs me by ten pounds.  Then he grabbed the bottle of water, tried to throw what was left on my computer.

Something unusual happened.. instead of protecting Nate, Mir scolded Nate for calling his father an idiot and pulled him into our kitchen, away from me.  She told him I was only telling him something that he needed to hear, was not being mean to him, and he had no reason for what he had done.  It was then that I retreated upstairs.  After the kid tried to tackle me, I could feel that I was angry.  If he came at me again, he was going to get the back of my hand.  I think that was the first time ever that she did not make me the bad guy, supported me.

Mir and I have spent a lot of time together the past few days.  Since Wednesday, we have been car shopping.  Mir hates it.  I relish it, although I don’t like spending a lot of time looking.  But my wife needs time for a notion to sink in, just like it took time to sink in that our eleven year old 160,000 mile van needed to be replaced.  She has been driving it for her job since November, costing a fortune in fuel.  The engine has been making a lot of noise, a timing chain issue.  I have been suggesting she consider replacing the van for months.  Last weekend, she asked me to help her find a car.

2012 VW Passat, light blue, 9000 miles. We now have two VWs in our stable.

So I did.  We went to four dealers over the course of two days.  Friday, I went to another dealer, put a car on hold that I knew she would like and made an appointment for Saturday afternoon to look at the car together.  She loved it. We negotiated together, went home to discuss what to do, went back and bought the car.  Last night, we went out to dinner to celebrate.  The car is practical, not extravagant, just right.  Mir loves it.  And we did very well together buying it, had a good time.

Despite the fight, the good outweighs the bad…for once.  Might be a good sign.

Hung

Tags

anger, door, fatherhood, handy, hung, husband, pride

I think I should add the blog title as a tag and see what kind of traffic comes to this blog.  Then again, that may not be a good idea.  After all, she bop.

See what a big handy Dinty Moore type of manly man I am?  The finish is finished, doors hung and operational.  If you could see my hairy chest right now, you would see it puffed out and proud.  This is what my blog is for.. bragging without being called a doof to my face.

Look what I can do.  (leg kick)

My next door neighbor, Gladys Kravitz (not really, but you old Bewitched fans will appreciate that), saw my FB post where I showed off my doors and just had to come over to see them.  She was impressed.  She told Mir that she wants oak doors like that.  She wants to borrow me.

I’m not that easy.

As I write, I am receiving texts from adoring fans, requesting that I write something dirty.

I’M NOT THAT EASY!

Sorry, my one fan.  I’m feeling sexy in all my manliness right now, but not dirty.  Unless you want to hear me talk about how I scrubbed the bathroom last night, gave it everything I had, pushed my sponge in as hard as I could until it was sparkly and shiny.  Ooooooooh, it was.

And of course, my wife woke me up this morning to tell me I had missed a spot.  I said nary a word, cast not a scornful glance, exited the bed, scuffled sleepily to the bathroom, observed, retrieved my sponge from under the sink, shuffled back into the bedroom, handed her the sponge, and climbed back in bed.

She is overly and annoyingly obsessed right now, all because our daughter has arrived with her new beau.  As I started this blog, I could hear her scrubbing away up in our upstairs bathroom, somehow finding fault with the hour long job I had done in our bathroom last night.  You can’t make a thirty year old bathroom look better with a sponge.  A moment ago, she appeared next to me holding the shower curtain liner that I installed the week after Christmas.

“What are you doing?  I put that in a month ago!  And I spray it with the daily shower cleaner every morning.”

“It’s amazing how bad these things get in a month.”

“I’ll tell you what is amazing….”

We had an argument last night.  Our son’s first semester grade report arrived in the mail.  I knew it likely was not good even though I was assured that he had brought his grades down to passing grades, from D and F grades.  Both Mir and Nate had given me that assurance.  The report showed three C grades and four D grades.  To me, that is not passing.  I was not happy.  And I was the bad guy for being upset, told I had no business being shocked because I do not care.  You are not the one who calls and emails his teachers every day.  OK.  I refused to comment on how crazy that is.  But I’m not shocked, I am upset and I should be.  You don’t care, she kept saying and saying it in front of our son, deflecting the real issue.  Finally, I had it.  I put sensitivity and productive discussion aside, called her a name I will not repeat, and walked away to finish hanging those lovely doors.

Suddenly I don’t feel so manly. The doors look great and she had to admit that since our Gladys Kravitz said so.  All it took was one word to take that manly feeling away.

My daughter is here.  She brought her boyfriend with her.  I get to spend all afternoon and evening with them both tomorrow.  I am smiling.  I wish she would stay.

A Wedge In The Chasm (a bit of heavy fiction)

Tags

Adolescence, anger, fiction, Home, Parent

I intended on writing a little more tonight on a story I started a while ago or wirte a light blog, but instead my son helped inspire the beginning of a heavy story.  I write little pieces like this this one and come back to them later, when I need a bit of a jump start.

——————-

Andrea observed silently from the hallway, darkness enveloping her as she watched her husband’s usually proud head dip in defeat, his elbows on his knees to support the weight of the burden that pushed his face into his waiting hands.  She felt helpless, unable to give him the support she knew he needed.  The distance between them had grown exponentially over the past few months, a chasm widened by a teenage boy who craved the attention of his mother, attacking his father without provocation, a war the boy was winning simply because Andrea and John were already divided before the boy had reached his teenage years.  When the bullying began, she watched in silence or chastised if her bewildered husband tried to respond to Eric’s taunts and derision.  John was angry, she knew, and she did not want him yelling at their son.  Her father had done that to her, to her mother, and she hated it.  John was so much like her father.  It didn’t matter to her that he tried, was a good father who did his best to provide the proper example, spent time with both of their children in a way her own father had not.  Her husband was just going to have to take it.

Lord. Please help us make it through the teenage years.  Show John the way. 

John could hear Andrea shuffling in the hallway behind him.  Why she did that he did not know.  All he really needed was a little bit of help, to feel like she wasn’t somehow blaming him for what Eric was doing to him.  Didn’t she see what the boy was doing when he went after John?  The look of victory was in the boy’s expression.  If John responded at all, whether with anger or hurt or reprimand, he would be wrong.  It was clear.  The boy had won.  He was the king.  Andrea simply stood behind the boy and shushed John if he tried to say or do anything at all.

That had happened tonight.  John was recovering from foot surgery, the foot sore from the stress of walking on it all day, and Eric had cruelly swatted John’s foot off of the couch where he was resting.

“Give up some space, Dad.”  Eric grinned at his father as he watched John rub his foot in pain.  “Why are you watching that show again?  You know Mom doesn’t like you watching it.”  Another grin, this time in the direction of Andrea.

The barbs continued, a bullying fueled by teenage rebellion.  John could do nothing to stop it.  Anything he did would be seen as a fight by Andrea, her refusal to acknowledge Eric’s disrespect obvious.  Finally, John had left the room in the hope the distance would appease the angst.

Resignation and isolation swept over John, the burden mixed with the exhaustion of the day taking over.  It would feel so good if she quit watching him from the hallway, sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him.  That hadn’t happened for years, so long that he couldn’t remember the last time they had touched.  Each of them had given up and it showed.  Eric saw it.  He used the distance, wedged his way in between to push them farther apart.

John turned towards the hallway, too late as Andrea’s footsteps plodded up the stairs to their bedroom.

God, why do I have to stay here?  I’m angry, God.  Andrea is right about that.  Am I going to be wrong if I leave?

John knew the answer to that one.

F Bomb

Tags

anger, exercise, fatherhood, God, rage, teen parenting

Sometimes this guy needs to let the cork pop.  It’s healthy for me, my typically serene and jovial exterior often turned on as a shield to keep the rage inside, tearing me up if I don’t find a release.  There are plenty of constructive methods to calm the beast and cleanse the soul –

*exercise that requires an internal focus such as riding a bicycle,  playing softball or basketball  but not golf because it usually adds to the rage (my style of basketball has evolved into a combo of outside shooting and shoving my way under the basket)

*listening to almost any type of music with the volume turned up (give me a dose of Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, PLEASE)

*writing (much of the fiction I write is personal and therapeutic and written selfishly for myself)

*mowing the lawn or digging the garden

*couch time with my Sheltie, Nick, who is the most properly affectionate dog in the entire world and who would sit next to me with his head across my chest all day if I would allow

* time with my daughter, the one person in the entire world who seems to both understand me and accept me as I am (she is also the only one in my family who shares my love for loud music)

And then there is prayer, the type where I go to someplace where I can’t be heard, talk to God out loud, scream at Him as the rage comes to the surface.  There are times when my prayers come close to blasphemy because sometimes I just let God have it.  Like a boy, I take it out on my father who I think has to take it from me.  I know God does, knows the process I need to go through, knows how necessary it is for me to let it out.  Funny thing is that in the middle of my rage I can literally feel the comfort of God’s hand on me.  Call me strange for saying that, there are plenty of agnostics who have mocked me for similar statements, but it’s real.

I am not a person who is prone to cursing.  It’s less about my Christian faith than it is that rough language not being what I am about.  But every once in a while, when that cork needs to pop, when I am alone, I will allow an F or S bomb to drop.  Do I ask God to forgive me for it?  Not usually.  God knows me.  If I direct the bomb at God, I do.   That has happened.

Sunday morning, after church, I had an hour to myself at home.  After two weeks off of work to recover from foot surgery, I had one last day to recuperate before returning to work.  The weekend had been rough, my thirteen year old son as well as my wife testing my patience since Friday evening.  Most of the claims related to the doctors and surgery had come in and I decided to take that free hour to organize, as well as develop a plan for our finances for the next few months.  Rarely do I get peace when I work on the family finances, constant interruptions and demands usually beginning as soon as I start.  That alone is a frustration.  Why I thought that one hour was going to be any different, I don’t know.  My wife and son each have a cell phone.

My work area at the downstairs kitchen table was organized.  I began to dig into the spreadsheet  I have set up for our bills and bank accounts.  The first call was from my wife.  Then my son.  Then my wife again.  Then my son – a tag team match.  They knew what I was trying to do, but they didn’t care.  Were they questions that could wait until they got home.  You bet. 

Nick needed to go outside in between phone calls.  My cork was already straining to hold on.  I hobbled to the door to let him out, went back to the table to answer yet another call from my son, finished the call, went back to the door to call the dog in.  Nick had been distracted, normally not a problem, he was not in my line of sight and did not respond to my calls.  I shut the sliding glass down, turned around, and….

F—!!!!!

Loud.  A sonic boom.  The cork popped and bounced around the empty room.

My son had his hand on the doorknob to come into the kitchen from the garage.  He opened the door, yelled at me for dropping the bomb and kept on going as his mother followed him inside the house.  The boy wants to be king and he was seizing the opportunity to dethrone the current monarch. 

My son has heard a curse word from me twice in his lifetime.  And he has not let me forget that all week.  I simply refuse to acknowledge him as he works on me, tries to gain control by using the F word against me.  I won’t let it happen.

Chris Cornell sure sounded good this morning.