Daddy's Back

Soooo... how are you? Me? Oh yeah - I've kinda been MIA since just before Thanksgiving, I know. It was not initially by design however, the intensity of America post-Thanksgiving til the new year definitely got the better of me. Especially now that I have a walking, tantrum throwing, safety hazard of a toddler bouncing off the walls... Everyone said 'oh you just wait til they're walking' and I was like, yeah, yeah, I can't fucking wait, that'll be so much more fun than my four legged baby whose hips swing like a Newton's cradle as she Ninja Warriors through our abode. What a fucking IDIOT.

Christmas is crazy. American Christmas is mental. American Christmas during a pandemic with a toddler is fucking batshit. I was feeling the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness - whaddup my fellow Sports Science grads?!) for days after. Christmas Eve was spent building cars and Tipis and other toys, while also trying to do some extensive liver damage as an ode to my family back home in Old Blighty. Also, I always like to try and bite off more than I can chew and create some personalised gifts that take from the start of December until the early hours of Christmas morning, this year being no exemption. I succeeded - toys were built, my wife received a second volume of poetry to ease her ego, and livers were enlarged. Christmas is great - but then there is the comedown, the other DOMS; Delayed Onset Mental Stress (Don't Google it, I just made it up).

Many of us do go through the post-December blues - it is genuinely a very difficult period; we go from the highs of the festive period, straight back to normality, the pressures to be better this year, to hit the ground running and make meaningful change to ourselves and our lives. But that's a lot of work, and it definitely won't happen overnight. Maybe not even within the year we are told to reach these resolutions, and so we have to give ourselves a bit of leeway, not burden ourselves so much with the pressure, and just take it day by day. This year, that is especially true, with a raging global pandemic, civil and political unrest, an aggressively changing climate, and for us Dads, children...

Fucking children...

I love children. I love my child. But fuck me, if she don't put me through the ringer sometimes.

My child in particular has decided to spend her 2021 in a state of sleep regression. Literally, as soon as that clock hit midnight, bang - fuck you Mum, fuck you Dad, sleep is for chumps and I ain't one of those.

The thing is with sleep regressions, at the start, you just think it's just a couple of nights. Oh, she's having a hard time going down, let's give her an extra cuddle. Oh, she's waking up in the night too, well let's give her a cuddle and put her back. Oh fuck me, she's up at 4.30am, well let's give her a cuddle and put her back. She won't go back? Well good fucking morning to me. Before you know it, you're mollycoddling her to sleep every night time, every naptime, everyday for a couple weeks, and oh fuck, what have we done, we've undone all our hard work, and there's no turning back because her cries are a lot more intense now she's got those big girl lungs and I can not listen to that for long!

The little ones are always stressful. You're always begging to get out of their current growth phase into jollier pastures, and once you're there, you're desperate to go back, as if the nostalgia for their smaller and thus intrinsically cuter selves blurs their tempestuous lifestyles in your memory. Don't long for the days of the past - your mind is lying to you - they sucked too.

But in all seriousness, I do struggle, and I don't help myself. I feel stressed about my girl's current afflictions and worry about what I am told is swiftly approaching. Sometimes I feel I constantly worry about what's to come, all the 'bad' parts of my daughter's upcoming stage of life, that I forget something; I am right in the middle of what I always wanted in life.

I always wanted to be a Dad. I knew it was going to be the greatest challenge of my life, although admittedly you can never feel the magnitude of the challenge until you're in the midst of it. But still - I always wanted this. And yes, kids will do your head in. They are unreasonable, and inappropriate, and illogical, and loud, and incessant, and let's be real, in comparison to ourselves and our current place in life, they're dumb as shit, and no one likes dealing with someone their perceive to be stupider than them. And if you let yourself concentrate on those things, they will become the norm, more and more, and they will never get out of those habits you hate because instead of holding their hand and showing them the way, you get frustrated and zone out. For me, that is the case sometimes. And I feel horrible admitting that, but I also have to allow myself to feel those things, acknowledge them and confront them with brutal honesty so that I can fix them. Being a parent is hard. Being a parent during a deadly pandemic where you're forced to stay home and not be so sociable all the while politics is burning the land you walk on both figuratively and literally - give yourself a break. I need to give myself a break. I need -

To go into the loo, and fucking cry it out, deal with my shit, and come back refreshed, restored, and ready. I need to talk about it, with my therapist or my partner or other father friends. Strength in numbers, always - even at a time where it is hard to congregate in such numbers.

A kid is a whole job. Beyond what we would call full-time. And I often forget that. I often forget the contribution to society I am trying to provide by raising a decent human being, capable of changing society for the better. I always concentrate on the work I am missing, the work experiences I can't have, the career that is at a halt, the writing that is underwhelming or non-existent, and still I consistently put pressure on myself to do more, be more, when actually, raising is more than a worthy contribution to the world, if done right. So I'm gonna do that right.

I'm not going to pressure myself to make career moves and keep pushing myself to write and write and write. I didn't start writing in a vague aim for it to be read by many, and to create a career, or garner acclaim or whatever; I wrote for me. I wrote because I loved writing. I wrote because it helped me and brought me joy. Pressurising it removes all of those things.

No more pressure. I'm gonna take a back seat and enjoy the fucking ride.

I will not be posting as much as I had originally intended, and that's fine. My content may not be what I had originally intended, and that's fine. Life happens, circumstances change, and you have to look out for number 1. And your little number 2 (your child you fucking heathen, not your bowel movements). I will write when inspiration strikes, and the passion is burning, and I have something to say. Pressure just leads to paralysis, stress, feelings of unworthiness and ineptitude, for not adhering to your own ridiculous standards or what you think the world expects of you. The world doesn't expect you to do fucking anything except not being a cunt. And as long as you're not a cunt, then you are doing a pretty great job in life, because, let's face it, it's super easy to be a cunt, and you're not, so well done.

I'm going to write and post when I have time and when I want and when it feels good and important and healing for me. I have wasted a lot of time overthinking and stressing out and causing myself anxiety. I don't need to. This writing is for me, and I would love if you appreciated it too. But if not, well, fuck you, and I do hope you find fulfillment elsewhere.

I haven't posted in a long time, so today, I'm going to do a rather large drop of poetry. I have written these over the past 18 months. Some are serious, most are not - poetry doesn't always have to be serious people! They're not trying to be amazing and profound and beautiful - they're just silly, and we are all silly most of the time and I like to show that in my poetry. Having said that, some of them are trying to be the most amazing poem you've ever read so you better acknowledge that when you read them.

I will be back soon, with my posts, more poems, more cocktails. I can promise that. But I will do it when I'm ready, once I've taken care of myself, and my baby. We all need to have some patience, and calm, and remove stressful expectations that do not bring us joy. I'm learning that. Slowly. Too slow for my liking! Patience mate, remember... patience... calm... we're doing fucking great.