three years of you
or, growth is not linear; or, do not go quietly into that good night but scream until my eyes fill with blood and my hands shake from weariness; or, being a dad is rad
Wesley goes to a different school now.
How does that make you feel?
Happy…but also…I miss him.
I don’t even know how to talk about this without getting misty eyed. I wasn’t even there to witness this exchange, but even hearing about it, even typing it now, makes me want to weep for your beautiful, tiny heart.
You are a wonder.
I can barely put into words all the many things I feel when I look at you. Cannot express the ways my heart now beats just for you.
You, impossible you.
You my friend, daddy?
Such sweetness. Unexpected and unlooked for. I’ve broken my own dumb heart thousands of times and thousands of ways, but you’ve built me a wholly new one. A heart that beats for you, because of you.
You are a wonder.
I want a hug.
Did I make you? Are you because of me?
It never felt that way. Feels that way less and less with every day I spend in your shine. I know I shape you. Make you who you are in thousands of ways I won’t understand until you’re an adult looking at me with adult eyes, hoping you think of me kindly.
Watching you run through the house cackling. Watching you curl up with your mother because you just need a bit of comfort. Watching you talk to yourself while you’re playing games I’m too old to ever understand again.
I like you, daddy.
A long time ago, I never thought I’d have a child. Didn’t even see it as a possible future. When I met your mother, I told her I didn’t think I wanted children.
I also told her I didn’t want to get married. But, I mean, even though I was already falling in love with her, I also never thought I’d see her again.
When I consider who I’d be without you, I think that version of me would be happy too. He didn’t need you because he never met you.
But I’ve met you. I’ve held you since the moment you were born.
You don’t grow in my shadow; I age in your brightness.
Today you turn three. Your kindness, your sweetness, the way you laugh and the way you howl—I didn’t know how you’d change me. How you’d shape me.
So many men fear fatherhood. Can’t say that was true of me. When your mother was pregnant, I was only terrified of her dying. Of being left without her. My thoughts never stretched past that to bother worrying about you or all the things I would need to be. I didn’t fear fatherhood.
I feared being left alone.
And then there was you. You were the unhappiest creature I’ve ever encountered for your first three months of life. After three more months, you finally slept through the night, which meant we finally got some sleep. Finally got a chance to lift our heads up and look around, see one another again.
Gradually, you emerged from the wailing and crying.
And we fell in love with you.
Today you are three.
I hope you take only the best parts of me. I hope you grow up kind and gentle, happy and free. All the things it seemed were always so difficult for me. I hope you remember me kindly. Fondly.
Happy birthday, buddy.
I hope I never disappoint you in ways that can’t be forgiven.