Time.
I remember my first trip to the zoo, or rather, the owl cage at the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was this huge (at least from the perspective of a toddler) mesh cage with twisting branches running up to the top and the owls dotting the branches. Except in my memory, it’s a cage full of cats. I only know they’re supposed to be owls because my mother told me they were. Apparently, at that young age, I was convinced these hunched little figures with their tufts of feathers were cats, and the misperception lodged itself permanently in my memory.
My mother raised me primarily on her own. My father was camping trips and visits to the zoo and KennyWood and a a stash of candy in the glovebox. I remember watching through the living room window and running out to meet him when he showed up. It was the highlight of my week, those two or three days with my father. He used to read me fairy tales at night until I fell asleep, and because he couldn’t be there most of the time, he recorded my favourite ones for me to play whenever I wanted. I remember crying while I listened to them and feeling an odd sense of comfort from his voice coming through the speakers. I remember being taught the proper way to hold a saw, and being excited about the prospect of using the big chainsaw one day. Playing with the chemistry set in the basement and watching the different reactions with curious fascination even though they were never the reactions we expected. Learning how to play baseball and basketball and ride a bike. I was wholly my father’s son in those years, and I idolized him. We used to sit in the kitchen for hours talking about everything as he patiently explained different concepts to me and tolerated my never-ending questions.
Then, of course, I became a teenager. I wanted to go out and have fun and be independent, and my father couldn’t keep up with that. He tried in his odd, old-fashioned way to maintain our relationship, but I wasn’t interested. I had a whole world to explore and the doddering old man was just in my way. As he got older, he was around more and more, and decided we needed to do things together. Movies were a good common ground, expecially when the Star Wars trilogy was re-released. It was the first time since I’d been a little boy that I looked forward to my father’s visits. We’d go to the movie then out to dinner, just the two of us. In those brief moments, it was like it used to be. The rest of the week we’d be at each other’s throats, sometimes literally, but that one night it was okay. Eventually that came to an end, as well, and I got even more stubborn and independent and resentful and Dad… Well, he just didn’t get it.
I think about these things over and over now. Running through the timeline again and again. Two years ago, he almost died. He’s always had a knack for getting himself into accidents, particularly with large trucks. But this time, I couldn’t hop in my car and run to the hospital. This time I was five states and eleven hours away with a car of dubious quality and very strapped finances sitting in the back room at work trying to tell a nurse in West Virginia about a man I didn’t know at all. After that began a series of phone calls from Pennsylvania to Georgia, my father confessing the srangest things and me listening and accepting and dealing with them in my own insulated, self-destructive way because I felt I owed him.
There isn’t enough time. That’s the thought surrounding all of this. There isn’t enough time. But for what? My father and I have made our peace, and while I haven’t forgiven myself for everything, he seems to have. I’ve started thinking of it as my “mid-twenties” crisis. A friend of mine argued I couldn’t possibly be having one since I’m nowhere near my mid-twenties, until I pointed out that I’ll be 24 this year, at which point he began calling me old, which was incredibly helpful. A few weeks ago, my father was put into the hospital because he completely lost all of his strength. He’s home again now, after a very lengthy stay in the hospital, but there’s still no explanation for what happened.
I find myself wondering if it’d be any easier if he were 47 or even 57 instead of almost 77. I feel this recurring need for a father figure that’s been popping up ever since his stay over Christmas. Is there some weird phase no one tells you about (like we’re ever really fully informed on these things) in your nearly mid-twenties that it’s absolutely vital for you to have a particular parent? I guess, in a way, what it is is that I’m on a precipice. I’m slowly edging out of the leeway zone between being a teenager and being an adult where you’re supposed to have things figured out a little. Don’t ask me why 25 is that magical number for me; it just is. The problem is, I don’t have a clue. I still feel like I’m 12 and incredibly ill-equipped for being the man I’ll have to be in the relatively near future (thus far, I still insist on referring to myself as “boy”). I worry about being a good husband, a good father, and especially at the moment, a good son. Does anyone ever really know how to be these things or are we all just guessing?
Maybe there will never be the time to say or do all the things we want or hope for, or maybe it’s there, we just don’t make good use of it. It is possible to spend more time worrying about being P.C. than being honest, apologizing for past memories rather than making new ones, running from problems rather than looking for solutions, and wasting energy on fear when the next time, however terrifying it might be, could open a world of possibilities. There is a time for stubbornness and pride, and there is a time for humility and compromise. The latter is far more difficult, of course, but I’ve found that the best things in my life have been far from easy. It’s the struggle that makes us what we are, and it’s through the struggle that we learn who we are.
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