I and I

Having a child introduces many interesting dichotomies into a parent's life. Some are silly, like being responsible for raising someone that you want to kill a few times a week. They make time stand still with their tantrums but grow up in an instant. Others are more difficult. The one I struggle with every day is between work and home life. Right now it is my responsibility to financially support my family and to that end, I go to work every day and try to succeed and advance, to provide a secure future for them (of course there's more to work than this, but this aspect is most pertinent to our discussion). So after a full day of work, I'm supposed to be able to flip a switch at 5:00 and go into home mode, back to being a full-time parent. Of course it's not that easy, because I get involved in something that my brain wants to keep working on, I carry things with me without meaning to. After spending a little time with the kids, my perspective begins to reset and I remember why I was gone all day, what it's all for, and I go on with my night. In the morning or on Sunday nights, it's the same switch being flipped the other direction—one minute having breakfast with my family, the next a man of industry out the door. Like the pain Wolverine feels when his claws extend and retract, each of these transitions take its toll on me, not to mention each time Veronika says "Papa, you were at work so long."

The one that's been puzzling me the most lately is about identity. I've been feeling pretty creatively sapped lately and most of my efforts end in discouragement—I take a lot of pictures and am encouraged by the results until I wander onto flickr before bed and find that three of four people in the world are professionals; I try to coax out a few words about Bob Dylan but can never seem to satisfactorily convey my feelings about the music. I haven't been reading or writing or playing or making anything. In the back of my head, I know that this is because of Ivan's age and that it was the same with Veronika for the first year or so, but I can't stop the creative compulsion, which brings me back to identity. Being a parent is an all-consuming job, no question. It wouldn't be right any other way. But the conundrum is that part of being a good parent, in my estimation, is maintaining a sense of your individual self to be an example for your children, who are gradually becoming individuals themselves and taking your lead in understanding what that means. Parents live for their children but in the end cannot be completely defined by them because eventually they too must return to being individuals, before God if nowhere else (faith being another uniquely individual quality). I don't think this desire of parents to be something other than parents, if only for an hour a day or a night a month, is always based in a selfish (though much needed) wish for rest or relaxation. Sometimes it's about your individual self yearning for a healthy restoration of balance so you can be the kind of parent (and person) that you want to be for your children.

As my birthday arrived today (twenty-seventh), I thought about the past year and the next few and realized that I hadn't thought of myself in that way for some time, as having an individual life that progresses distinctly in time from that of my family, that's how wonderfully and inextricably linked it all is. All of this duality is not about feeling divided but about understanding the whole more completely and knowing how to regain balance. And when I finally think I've got it down, everything will shift again and I'll be back here trying to work it out.