I’m ready for the change
Last night, we had a fight at our house. No, there were no punches flying and nobody was taken out by a ninja throwing star, but there was plenty of drama. Three of my five kids are home for the holiday and I had to clear the air with two of them, the two youngest ones. It’s significant that it is the two youngest members of our family because I was way out of bounds and I didn’t realize it at the time. I went to bed angry and that’s something that isn’t done in our house. Typically, we stay up until four in the morning, if we have to, in order to settle an issue. But last night it was an entirely different story.
Someone saved my life last week. His name is Dr. Bain. He is the man who scheduled me for my sleep apnea test in Seattle. I was seen by him three weeks ago and when the lady making my appointment tried to push my appointment to 2012, he stood behind her and said, “No - get him in as soon as possible.” The good doctor knew that I was dying. I wasn’t dying in a dramatic way like someone suffering from cancer. The truth is that I had not slept through the night in over 13 years and because of my apnea, I was dying a little at a time. The first night I woke up 667 times and woke in the morning like always, exhausted. The second night I was hooked up to a machine that blew filtered air into my nose. I slept 9 hours uninterupted and woke feeling like a new man. My path to becoming a grumpy old man had been sidetracked; I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good. It has been 7 days and I feel like a new man.
I tell you this because I wasn’t expecting to loose my cool. But I did. I got mad because my two kids, aged 21 and 23, were basically telling me to mind my own business. I was meddling and wasn’t aware of my level of annoyance. The truth is that I was driving my kids nuts and couldn’t understand why my son and my daughter did not want me in the private part of their lives.
I have always been a meddler. I routinely stick my nose into things I have no business in and I constantly have to police my mouth. I used to work with a man named Damon who knicknamed me “Miracle Whip” because he claimed that whenever I heard something I sweetened it up and spread it around. I realize that being a gossip is different than be a meddler, but the two are cousins in the scheme of character flaws, one inevitably leads to the other. My problem is that I am very opinionated and feel the need to pontificate on every subject, or, at least, I used to. Opinions are like garbage cans - almost everyone has one and some of them stink! I was meddling in my kids’ lives.
So I was feeling steamed and disrespected when I tried to sleep. The answer came to me just after 3 AM. What I needed to do was place the two youngest members of the family in the same category as the other three. I need to let them be adults. It was a middle of the night epiphany - My days as a father were over. It was time to become a friend.
So I set the adults down, apologized, and vowed to stay out of their beeswax until asked. I explained that the sermons on the mount were over. Dad is not giving advice unless asked. I do this with my three oldest children and it works. When my second oldest daughter told me how she and her husband were “medical marijuana” growers in Colorado and how she wanted to show me her six foot tall plants I said, “That’s interesting” and I took the tour. There’s nothing else I can do. She’s 26, a mother of two, and she can make her own calls. I didn’t offer her my advice or my opinion. Those days are over. On the flip side, when Jenna, the third oldest at 24, called last month to ask my opinion on buying a home in Tennessee I did some research and gave her my spin. The virtual tour and the comps bore out. The interest rate was great so I told her it was a nice call. Her and her husband, Rich, or Ricardo as I refer to him, closed escrow on Friday. It’s all part of the process.
So maybe it will be a fun Christmas afterall. The presents are wrapped and while I write this there are five young people around my kitchen table painting Christmas cookies for our yearly delivery to 18 of our neighbors. Clay Aiken’s Christmas CD is playing and Natalie, my oldest at 28, is building a gingerbread house on the counter. They are all laughing and having a good time, oblivious to the fact that the guy at the computer is checking out of the father business.
So what will I do? There will be unused energy so maybe I’ll use my extra gumption to thank people like Dr. Bain for saving my physical life. My emotional life is up to me and God. In any case, I’ve got some decisions to make and I’ll have some extra time on my hands, so what’s a guy to do? I haven’t finished the new Sue Grafton novel yet so there’s that. Maybe I’ll send a couple more Christmas cards to those who may have slipped through the cracks. On second thought, maybe I’ll paint a cookie or two. But I won’t be a dad policing his children while they work on an art project. I’ll just be one of the gang. I’m turning in my father badge and I’m ready for the change. Merry Christmas.
