Now you see it...now you don't!

I spent all my morning yesterday working together with an old friend whom I had not seen in over five years. We became good friends while we were doing our jobs on board the USS Peleliu. On that particular occasion, we both suffered from the same unfortunate casualty of having to sleep in the infirmary of the ship since all other berthing quarters were occupied to capacity during our two weeks on board. Sleeping in the infirmary meant not having an inch of privacy or any space to store our belongings while we were out at sea. The room in itself was an enormous space with a few hundred two inch thick mattresses suspended in mid air by wired frames and stacked three occupants high. I cannot remember exactly what the actual numbers were, but I am pretty sure that the entire space was also occupied with at least 200 U.S. Marines with which we all had to share the same six toilets, sinks, and showers daily. On that particular occasion, instead of filling our cups with frustration, we decided to make the best of it regardless of our circumstances. We did our jobs fully aware that at least by the end of the two weeks, we would both be heading back to the comfort of our own homes while the rest of the crew were going to have to live in those conditions for the duration of their six month tour of duty out in the middle of the Persian Gulf. During this particular trip I learned that putting things in perspective definitely had the power to change my outlook in life.

During that particular temporary duty out at sea the job was all consuming for at least twelve hours a day which then left me with twelve hours of personal time in which eating, exercising, bathing, reading, socializing, and then eventually sleeping occupied the rest. During the socializing time of my two week trip I managed to learned a great deal about my new friend's life. He had two teenage kids from a previous marriage that ended in a divorce with a very complicated custody arrangement mostly because his ex-wife moved to a completely different state after the divorce. Some years later he met a really nice woman while he was still on active duty in Spain, they fell in love and he re-married. They both wanted to have a family and adopted a baby which currently is around six years old. Every time I have ever heard him talk about his new bride and child, all that comes out of his mouth are wonderful stories and comments. As bad as his first marriage had turned out, with that same intensity his second marriage has fallen into the wonderful side of the spectrum. In other words, he is happy as can be and loving every minute of his new life.

As we caught up with what had transpired in the last five years while we had not been in contact, stories of an extremely talented child that started to play the drums at the age of two came to life with so much joy that I could easily see his eyes glitter with pride. By the time he left my office several hours later, we both walked to his car and he was gracious enough to share with me a few amazing videos of his son performing for the hand held camera on his phone. I am extremely happy for my friend, mostly because I can tell that at this moment his life is bringing some pretty good experiences for him to enjoy and in all fairness, that had not been the case during his previous marriage. As I sit here today reviewing all that was shared between us in those four morning hours, I realize that even though he told me some very personal and intimate details of his life, not once did I take the time to bring him up to speed with regards to my own. I have justified my unbalanced interaction due to the fact that I had very little privacy in my office while we were working together yesterday, so opening up and telling him some of my life also meant telling everyone else that surrounds my work space this information. However, in my heart I know very well that this justification is not entirely accurate since I could of stepped outside with him for a little while in order to gain privacy and share. The last time we had been together I remember clearly sharing plenty of the drama in which my life was entangled at that moment. Yet for some interesting reason I did not find it adequate for me to be fair in the information exchange we were having yesterday. Instead, when he asked about my personal situation I simply answered, "things are OK." Nothing more, nothing less.

So why is it that I did not open up to sharing? It should be obvious to you as a reader of this blog that I am not one to hold much back in the form of expressing myself and my willingness to share some extremely personal parts of my life. At first sight it almost seemed as if I might not be telling the truth when such a complicated question as "how are things going with your kids?" is asked of me and I simply replied "things are OK." However, if I wanted to accurately answer that question with hopes of not losing the attention of the individual which asked in the first place, a great deal of effort and time would be required from both myself and hopefully an extremely focused listener. As I commented in one of my previous posts, by finding a collage of a dozen or more short answers to the reason for which I did not share more information with my friend, I was probably not being entirely truthful. As hard it may seem for me to try to narrow down my answer to a single reply I am very much inclined to do so for the sake of being honest to you and myself too.

I honestly believe that this blog has given me a platform to voice my thoughts which interestingly enough I have discovered relieves me of a lot of the stress that typically motivated me to share my worries during friendly conversations in the past. Currently I sit, think about my current situation and challenges, I write them down in the form of a post, and then somehow at least half the mental weight that they were imposing on me feels as if it simply disappears. The remaining half becomes manageable and easier to cope with on a day to day basis. I am no expert on this process which has effectively given me so much emotional relief, so unfortunately I am not able to reveal to you what are all of the mechanics involved that make this process so successful. All I can say is that in my particular situation it works very well. However, this is not to say that I do not need to share on a more personal level with those that are close to me. On the contrary, the act of writing down my thoughts has also given me a way to think through my challenges, obtain advice and comments from a larger pool of individuals, and then share a more balanced view of my concerns with those that I love and are very close to me. I feel as if this process takes out a lot of the emotional frustration that typically used to overwhelm me while sharing my problems with others. After all, I am no different than anyone else in the fact that sometimes it is hard for me to see the difference between loving advice and criticism. In essence, writing about my life desensitizes me enough to be a lot more receptive to other people's opinion.

I have only been posting on this blog since August 10th of this year. During these four months I have benefited in so many ways from this sharing exercise that I am strongly inclined to recommend other parents to do the same when faced with challenges that might seem far and above their personal ability to handle. On the other hand I feel obligated to also say that I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert on any of the subjects that I have shared here in writing, much less with respect to the possible benefits or shortfalls of utilizing such a public format as an online blog. However, I can tell you this, either by the benefit of your prayers, the advice and comments that you have shared with me, or the simple nature of the act of me venting in my posts, I have seen a significant improvement in my ability to cope with the challenges in my life. I am not totally sure how much you as a reader have gained from this experience, but I can safely say that I have gained plenty to be thankful about.

In the past, when I was exposed to the marvel of watching a video of a five year old child playing the drums with a degree of talent that obviously exceeds many other five year old kids, my first instinct would of been to utilize every ounce I posses of mental restrain in order to avoid asking the parent "what else is wrong with your child?" It might sound cruel to you that my first inclination while seeing such a talent would drive me to believe that in order for the child to have this ability he must be damaged in other ways, but if you have read my blog since August, I am sure you can understand how my life experiences might drive me to such a conclusion. My own parenting background has taught me that exceptional abilities in children are typically tied to kids that are wired differently and tend to reveal themselves as a lot of challenging behavior for their parents to deal with at many levels. However, in the process of me sharing my own child's special abilities with you, I also learned to embrace him for who he is, and not expect him to be anyone else but himself. Nothing has changed in the degree of difficulty that is tied to raising my oldest son because of me sharing our lives with you here, so why is it that I have found it easier to manage his challenging personality since I started writing on this blog? In fact, just as a chef might kick everyone out of the kitchen while he or she is preparing some splendid treat, I too have also learned not to reveal everything that is on the burner until I am able to find it's true meaning and make sense of it. In other words, while our lives are cooking on the stove, I mostly take the time to share with you yesterday's delight. I do this in order to offer me and my children a certain degree of privacy which I feel we are definitely entitled to. Yesterday I watched the video of my friend's son, I still understood that special abilities meant a lot of challenges for his parents, but I also understood that this is just part of life and to focus on the challenges only makes it that much harder for the parent in the long run. Instead, I discovered being able to find within myself words of encouragement so that my friend could also start walking a path of true love with his son regardless of what the future might bring his way. With respect to this new found perspective within, I find it to be so much more productive, helpful, and effective than the old "WARNING ALERT" that might of come out in the past.

Parenting is not a skill that I can learn from a set of rules that anyone else might of written because of their extensive educational background in child behavior. In fact, as far as I have been able to discover, every single rule has not just one but many exceptions, and every single child is just as I know that I am, a completely different world of their own. Even though I strongly encourage myself to read as much material I can get my hands on and attend as many educational events geared for the sake of good parenting, I can safely tell you that most of the tools I will need to be an effective parent will come from my own experiences. I have very little choice on the matter and will have to walk the unique path that my own children make in their lives in order to learn what I need to be a good parent. The best advice I can give is to be willing to set aside the book of rules that we have aggregated during our lives and open not just our mind, but also our heart to each individual situation we encounter with our children. Just because a technique or rule worked with me or anyone else as a child does not mean it will work with my own children. What would be the point in enforcing something that is of no true benefit to their growth? Also, as a parent in the process of learning how to deal with all the challenges that will come my way, it will be imperative that I learn to accept my mistakes as soon as possible in order to focus on not making them again. There is very little chance that I will get it right the first time, not matter how wonderfully talented I might think I am, so the sooner I accept this reality, the better my chances are of being an effective parent. In my path I will find myself many times saying "I wish I would of known..." and trust me when I tell you that this is totally normal. My goal is not to be perfect, that would be unachievable. My goal is to learn from my mistakes as quickly as possible in order not to allow myself to make things worse by perpetuating my erroneous behavior.

How many times have you watched a talented magician perform something that seems completely unreal? In their illusion we find ourselves pondering how on earth they were able to fool our eyes. Obviously we all know that behind it all there is some kind of trick that makes it possible for us to be fooled. I know of nobody that truly believes in magical powers. The same is true about parenting. Even though the apparent impeccable behavior of some children might lead me to believe that their parents have an amazing talent towards parenting, I am fully aware that behind every perfectly behaved child hides an illusion to be discovered by the expertly trained eye. In fact, this typical social behavior of concealing skeletons in our household closets is probably one of the most significant reasons that most parents dealing with challenging situations at home feel so inadequate and sometimes even hopeless in their efforts to be good parents. Maybe it is time to make a bit of a paradigm change in our culture for the sake of our children. After all, who is it that pays the price when the reality of parenting is hidden behind so many closed doors? I am here to tell you that the process I have set forward to share with you via this blog has given me a great deal of information which for the longest time seemed totally hidden from my search efforts. In fact, some times the smallest comments you have made to me via your emails, phone conversations, and your own posts after reading my blog have given me to greatest reward in my quest for being a good father. I have learned from your kind words that even though you might posses the magical powers to conceal your own challenges, you have made the wonderful choice of letting me in on the trick to your magic and allowed me to learn from your wisdom instead. I must admit that this is all very cool. Instead of playing the "Now you see it...now you don't!" trick, here we are sharing and learning from each other. Thank you.

Dad