I have always wondered how far down the rabbit whole I will have to go in order to truly understand what everything that happens in my life truly means. Every day that goes by teaches me something new that in one way or the other out dates many of my goals and dreams. In fact, so many things affect me in so many different ways that I have seriously chosen to not plan too far ahead, but instead to live one day at a time. I say this as a casual statement, yet the reality of this comment is deeply impacting and to a great degree sad. I see so many of the people that surround me making grand plans for their future, for the eventual moments in their lives, and I can't help but feel cheated by the deck of cards to which my life is being dealt with day by day. I want so bad to be able to write great news and wonderful happenings, but the reality of the moment does not span far enough to cover emotions such as joy and genuine happiness. The longer I walk the road I have been given, the darker it gets and the lonelier it becomes. It makes absolutely no sense to hold on to anyone else while I fall into this well, that would just make the moment even harder to bear because of the inevitable moment that comes when I will have to let go anyway. Instead I have chosen to find whatever I need to survive in every single nanosecond of my existence. Hidden in between the notes that compose the music of this journey I have become a master in hearing the tune that I need to be OK. It is more like enjoying the silence in between the notes, rather than the music in itself. Chaos intermingled with sorrow and confusion give themselves pauses from time to time that allow me to re-catch my breath, re-charge my heart, and most of all see a single point of light in the horizon to find my bearing.
Love is probably the most confusing emotion I have ever experienced. It has the ability to fill up my cup just as easily as it does to completely drain it. As the father of a child that carries with him an un-song melody of hope, I find myself daily wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him back into my endless caring arms. I dream of moments of peace in which he has enough lucidity to be able to understand how much I care and how deeply it affects me when he makes choices that are scary and unhealthy. Day after day these moments become less common and more sparse, making it harder and harder for me to find instances of hope to grab onto and slow down my free fall. Every once in a while I get a chance to share a good moment, a positive insight, a healthy perspective with him. Those moments feel as if a parachute opens up in mid air breaking the speed at which we are both dropping and giving us a chance to enjoy the view without the despair of the knowledge of a final catastrophic impact. However, when the moment is over I feel as if I need to grab on to him again as not to allow him to free fall without me leaving each other alone and probably lost. I now know that it is love that triggers my reflex to grab on to him, to try to stop what most of the time seems as an inevitable crash and nothing but hurtful outcome. Love forces me to keep my eyes open as we fall down together, when instinctively I just want to close them tight and brace myself. I am mortified by what every bone in my body is telling me of how much it will hurt if we both hit bottom together, yet I am incapable of letting go. I have come too far to give up and find myself incapable of letting go and simply saving myself. It is almost as if I have lost my primordial instinct of survival, and this reality scares me more than I ever thought it would. I've always wondered what it would be like to be somebody else. If I were different, could I let go?
I remember clearly as a young boy falling heads over heels in love with a young beautiful girl. In fact, as far back as I can remember, during my Kindergarten days, I already liked this girl so much that the mention of her name simply made me blush. Two years later, when my father returned from Vietnam, we moved to Phoenix Arizona forcing me to let go of my impossible love. Two years after that, when we finally came back to Puerto Rico, she was still in the same school that I returned to. Again, with the same infatuation that could clearly be called puppy love, my heart found its way back into falling for the adorable young lady. Two years followed and when I was finally in sixth grade I built the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend for which surprisingly she accepted. At my mother's place, my childhood home, there is still a photo album filled with pictures of some of the most beautiful moments a young boy could ever dream of. The now flimsy and yellowish pages of this album are filled with the magic created by light bouncing off the beautiful smiles of youth and captured by the chemistry of silver halides absorbing these instances in time that where later turned into the old fashion paper goods that we call photographs. In each image there is an endless supply of happiness, unadulterated love, and what in those days I could of only describe as butterflies in my belly. How marvelous it is to sometimes go back home, open up this hidden treasure of pure joy. I have been told in more than one occasion that I am incapable of saying this girls name without smiling and having my eyes sparkle at the same time. I believe that to be true, I am not able to do anything but feel love for the moment in time in which I was so happy. Unfortunately for me the young lady lost her father to a sudden heart attack and her mother eventually decided to move back to her original home in Spain, leaving my young boy heartbroken to pieces in the process. Within weeks, what seemed like my entire source of happiness walked away to a place so far that it might as well been another planet. Even though we corresponded in writing probably less than a half dozen times, I still have burned into my memory her foreign address which I can recite at will.
Love comes in many flavors, some of which can only be described as sweet as honey while others are as bitter as biting into a lemon wedge. I am totally incapable of feeling anything less than adoration towards my parents, especially my mother that has given me so much to be proud of in my so many years of life. The same goes for my two sisters and my brother, within their boundless source of caring I have been fortunate enough to heal so many of my current wounds. I do not know what would be of me if it were not for their continuous words of hope and encouragement. Twisted in the fiber of my sibling relationships are an infinite source of nourishment that keeps me going one day at a time. So why is it that as a father I feel so alone, so desolate at times? If those that surround me are constantly giving of themselves to fulfill my hunger to feel well, why does it hurt so much when I grab on to my oldest son and spiral down with him into the constant crisis or his ill mind? If the relationships in my life are good, loving, caring, and giving to a great degree of satisfaction, why do I feel as if I was broken, damaged, and mostly defective? There were several reasons for me to walk away from almost 18 years of marriage, any one of them probably good enough to convince me not to look back. However, the main and most important one in my mind was because I felt alone in my efforts to fix what was broken in our relationship. As the years go by I have found absolutely no reason to look back at my apparently selfish motivations. Today, even though I am not truly questioning my reasons, I do question my personal contribution to our inability to reconcile. Was I already broken, damaged, and defective? If so, even if my ex-spouse would of tried to contribute to fixing what needed to be corrected in our marriage, would I have been capable of recognizing her efforts?
When I see how very little ability my very smart son has to recognize the error of his ways, it poses a grave question in my mind about my own ability to recognize what I might of done wrong in my own past or even now in my present situation. It is not so much about recognizing mistakes since who is to say that any of it is a mistake at all. No, it is more about realizing what I am truly contributing to making things better. As strong as my love for my child might be, there is no certainty that it is the right approach to contributing to his well being. It certainly is not contributing to my own personal well being! I feel categorically affected in so many ways that I am incapable of putting it into coherent words. I'll be talking about falling into a rabbit whole as quickly as I change the subject into falling in love at the age of five. This can only mean that as I get dragged down the white water rapids of my life I am desperately reaching for any branch that might reach me from the edge of this turbulent river in hopes to save myself from my eventual destiny. I am in fact giving into the effects of emotional exhaustion, knowing well enough that sooner or later I will again catch my breath and keep going for another round regardless of the outcome of this moment in time.
Ahhh, to smell her beautiful hair sliding through my fingers as we look into each other's eyes. The rapid heartbeat that only comes once in a lifetime from the anticipation of a first kiss. Love is a splendid thing when it brings with it the aroma of happiness and joy. Love also brings with it the bitter sweet taste of a broken heart when a true love walks away due to life taking its course regardless of any and all good intentions. Nothing is truly forever, including the safety net of an adoring parent. Sooner or later it all finds a way of dispersing itself through all of those beautiful or even scary moments in time that summarize our lives. I pray that I have a chance to witness the glorious moment in which God heals my son, maybe giving me what I need to heal myself too. Feeling broken is nothing to be proud of, and makes very little sense when I am also trying to help my children. This is why today I pray...
"God, take me into your arms and heal me. Fix what is broken so that I am damaged no more and capable of helping my son."
Dad
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