Suck it, Echo

I was just writing a little bit about my kids. It’s amazing how much they give me. In the very beginning after I got kicked out of the house five years ago, they gave me the will to keep trying. I won’t say I would have killed myself, but I will say it was really dark inside me back then. But, my little people, only 3 and 5 at the time, were my light.

So, I gave them life. They gave me life. We’re even.

I joke, but there’s a truth in that idea in our day to day existence. I get to try my best to show them a kind of love that might have been there in my parents, but was never really felt by little me. So, when we have little moments where I know my love is actually felt by my kids, it’s like a do over from feelings I would have liked to have grown up with.

I think my fucked up head convinces me at times that I fall short as a dad. But, I need to stick with the unfucking process…getting my head to think correctly instead of buying into those bullshit thoughts and feelings that have told me my whole life that I’m not good enough. The unfucking of my thoughts require a lot of writing, but it’s worth it because it takes me to that space where I can battle the “I’m not good enough” thoughts.

Writing gives me that, oh yeah I’m fucking awesome feeling. But, god…it took me all these years to realized that I needed something as powerful as writing and that I needed to do it every fucking day if I’m going to beat down the demons inside me that have run my life. Trying to live a productive, healthy life while a little voice keeps echoing the lack of love you felt growing up? You don’t measure up. Echo. Echo. Echo. Remember that time you fucked up. Echo. Echo. Echo.

I could have been in a great mood having a great day, but that fucking echo would turn me into that unloveable kid in an instant. Life got good when I realized it’s possible to beat the echo. Therapy works. I can’t even count the times I walked into my therapist’s office believing the echo and walked out feeling like I could take on the world.

She puts the echo in its place. And writing has the same effect. It gets my head to think healthy thoughts instead of the usual “I’m a fucking train wreck” feelings. The echo has been a family tradition for generations. You just learn to live with it and accept it. It’s the classic, if you can’t beat em, join em scenario. But, that god damn echo doesn’t deserve the space it’s got in the fucked up parts of my head. And I keep battling to evict that motherfucker, because I want my kids to have a shot at a healthier life than I’ve had.

My kids know I write every day. They know I’m not perfect. They know I go to therapy. And one day they’ll get that I do all of those things not just for me, but for them. They made me want to keep going when I might have otherwise given up.

And holy shit…look at the reward. This life I get to have with them is so friggin great. These last few days they’ve been on Spring Break. So, naturally we got really hammered, because I’m trying to teach them that the best way to battle the echo is with Jack Daniel’s help. Okay, that’s not true…but we did stay up til 10:00 one night. That’s some crazy shit.

Actually, the night we stayed up late we went to see “The Life of Pi”. We all three loved it and it spurred some really cool discussion. I loved the line where the dad says something about wishing that his sons would learn to think for themselves rather than just blindly accepting his faith and/or family traditions.

Our faith has to be our own. What I believe had to come through trial and error in order for it to be real. My father’s Christianity didn’t fit. It was good at reinforcing the echo by making me feel either guilty or like a piece of shit most of the time. When you’re so stuck in that little box it’s really hard to think independently. Lucky for me I got shunned (I’m being dramatic, but it’s not that far off from what happened) by the church.

Looking back, I’m really glad I got to learn to think for myself. And feel what it’s like to be on the outside looking in at church and in my marriage. I think a little distance provided some much needed clarity. And my therapist woke me the fuck up when she poured buckets of grace on my dying soul. What a gift.

So, that’s what I’m trying to pass on to my kids…that grace is the thing that matters…and you have to see the bigger picture and understand someone’s story before you can really get them. And as I wrote that I thought about my dad. He’s hurt me too much for me to find grace yet. He’s hurt me too much for me to be ready to even think about trying to understand the story that made him who he is. The wound is still too fresh. And I’m fucking old. Will it ever heal? I don’t know, but I know that the same echo I was given was given to him by his mom and her mom before that and it’s about fucking time someone take a stand.

So, while I’m figuring shit out, I’m protecting my kids. I don’t want to just blindly say let’s go hang out with grandpa, because that’s what everybody else does. I should have been protected from my grandma. I wasn’t. So, I’m erring on the side of caution. The echo deserves no place in my kid’s head.

And to see little glimpses of the kids living echo free...knowing they’re special and knowing they’re loved…it’s a fucking dream come true. Riley made me this journal for Christmas with a note on every third page about something unique that she appreciates about me. That thing is priceless. She knows I write. And she knows I love her and is able to express her love back to me. It’s fucking phenomenal.

And Blake man…that kid is so cool too…he doesn’t care what we do or where we live or what we smell like, he just wants time with his Daddy. He just wants to hang out…building paper airplanes, playing basketball whatever. Yesterday he was asking me what he should draw in his journal. I listed a bunch of things that he insta said no to. I said, “draw a picture of your daddy with bigger muscles and a smaller belly.” I had him at daddy, he got quiet and went to work on his drawing. And as I write it’s sinking in that he adores me…both my kids do.

And I hope that’s the love that drowns out the echo as they continue to grow up. And I hope that as a result they have room in their brains to think for themselves. I don’t want them to be me. I’ve had enough trouble being that. I just want them to be themselves, but whatever they believe, wherever life takes them, I want them to get that I exist to help them battle their echo. I could’ve mailed it in from that shitty hotel room five years ago, but because of my kids I’m still a real, live person. Suck it, echo.