I am a Father

I always wanted to be a dad. I knew it in my heart, my soul, that I wanted to be a dad.

My dad was always there for me – baseball games, choir concerts, football games, weekends of hunting and fishing, he even took an interest in some of my favorite hobbies like Dungeons & Dragons, video games, and The Transformers. I wanted to be like him in so many ways when it came to being a dad – belly laughs, larger than life stories, and of course, ridiculous anecdotes.

My dad hasn’t always been perfect. Some times he’s really pissed me off, but he’s still my hero. I’ve never doubted my dad loves me and wants what’s best for me, even if he comes at it from different point of view or collection of life experiences. I love my dad, even when we don’t get along.

This is the kind of father I wanted to be when Dominic was born. This is the kind of dad I try to be day in, day out but I haven’t always been the person, the father that he needed.

I’ve struggled with mental illness most of my life and much of that time it was undiagnosed. I just knew I didn’t feel right, didn’t feel human, which showed up in more pronounced and frightening ways not long after my son was born.

For the first six months he was with us, Michelle slept on the couch and Dominic slept in his swing while I slept alone upstairs in our bedroom. All of the anxiety, the depression, came out in inexplicable rage. I was never physical with Michelle or Dominic, it was rare I raised my voice, but I was not pleasant to be around.

Most days I would lock myself in the basement and play video games or listen to music. Occasionally I would write 1000 to 2000 word journal entries about how much I hated my life and almost everything in it. My wife, my best friend was afraid for me, what I might do to myself, but she wasn’t sure what to do about my outbursts and my lack of involvement with our son. I was failing at the one thing I always wanted, which made my rage at myself that much more resolute.

Everything would change when I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The Road was the first and only book that ever made me cry, but it also showed me that no matter what happened around me, I could still be a great dad. I closed the book, and I went over to Dominic and I held him close to me and sobbed into the blanket wrapped about him.

Not long after that I went to counseling for the first time. Soon many other first would follow. I wasn’t cured, I wasn’t all better, but it did give me the strength to be a better father.

I am a father.