Thirty-two years ago I found myself on top of the world. The music and arts newspaper I had launched a couple of years earlier had, after a shaky start, achieved a status, clout and popularity few thought possible even a year earlier. Founders of an all-girl power-pop band who had just arrived in Portland by way of Phoenix, but without their drummer, ultimately agreed to let me join their band after multiple failed attempts at recruiting a girl drummer. (They had to make me an “honorary girl” before allowing themselves to make peace with allowing a boy in the band, but at least that honor didn’t require me enrolling into gender pathways.)
But best of all, one of my closest friends and I became lovers. A few months later, after my new lover announced she was pregnant, we found ourselves faced with making our most important decision to date: whether to take her pregnancy to term. I did my best to assure her that I understood the decision was hers, that she would unquestionably have the final say, and that I would support her decision wholeheartedly. Then I asked if she would consider not ending her pregnancy. My reasoning was that we both had launched little business enterprises that appeared to be taking off (she had launched a successful and growing emotional therapy practice that continues to enjoy success to this day). She was in her late twenties; I was in my early thirties. The time seemed right. Although initially hesitant, she soon dove into expectant motherhood with enthusiasm.
At this juncture, the feel-good thing to do is to report that things proceeded from there to happily ever after, and that there’s nothing more to report. What actually happened is my tiny little media empire began to crumble. The core staff abruptly walked out and launched their own arty rag. My relationship with Deanna began showing strain. I started to panic. Most crucially, when I should have been emotionally present with the person carrying our little one, I was — certainly unintentionally and without even fully realizing it — emotionally absent. The joy we both felt as we welcomed our baby girl into this world on Monday, August 8th, 1994 masked the tension of a relationship between mother and father that was profoundly changing. Within months, we found ourselves in terminal relationship counseling. Not much more than a year later, we had split up.
I had promised myself that if I ever had children, I would commit to raising them in an “unbroken home” — the same home where their mother and father lived. It hadn’t crossed my mind that any breach of that commitment would come about from decisions that were not mine. I’m not sure why that had never occurred to me, but part of the reason may have to do with my relatively undisciplined approach to making my way though life from childhood through my late twenties. As I, however belatedly, began making significant strides towards maturity in my late twenties and early thirties, the rewards of that increased maturity and willingness to take greater responsibility came quickly and obviously. Bad behavior on my part contributed mightily to the eventual dissolution of my relationship with a woman I had loved and lived with for most of my twenties. My much better behavior would make me a “keeper” with my new partner, I reasoned. In actuality, it didn’t work out that way.
The decades that followed often found me mired in gloom and despair. Not at every moment, of course. As a single father, the early years of my daughter’s life were among the most fun, even joyous. I was employed with a Federal agency; having a steady income meant that I had the wherewithal to take Sofia to family reunions, camping trips, and other outdoor adventures. But the steady job wouldn’t last. The gainful employment workplace became a toxic work wasteland. Thus, I abandoned the secure job to embark on more than a dozen years of entrepreneurial pursuits, punctuated by short-lived episodes of paid employment. My personal income during this period was erratic — at times up, at other times down, and sometimes non-existent. In the early twenty-tens, as I settled into short-term contract work supplied by employment agencies, my income remained perpetually low, if slightly more steady.
Compounding the financial woes was the sense of living in a society that had seemingly lost its way. The U.S. military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in the early aughts in response to the September 11, 2001 atrocities, and the torture scandals within the detention facilities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay that came to light in the years that immediately followed, were profoundly disturbing to me (as they were to so many others). When my daughter was little, I had considered encouraging her to volunteer for a three- or four-year enlistment in one of the branches of the military after she came of age. But the illegal and unwarranted military invasions, and the torture dungeon monstrosities that quickly followed, forced me to reconsider. If she had expressed any desire to enlist, I would have supported her in wherever those desires may have taken her. But I no longer had any interest in recommending military service.
For the next couple of decades, I could be reliably counted upon to be the Debbie Downer of any party. Of course, I was still fun and funny — that is until I would launch into one rationale or another over why I felt it necessary to express my grief over an unraveling society, and how everything was hurtling towards the abyss. What I was less conscious of was the deleterious effect my unrelenting downer-isms had on my long-suffering daughter. And my obtuseness was not due to any lack of effort on her part to bring that fact to my attention, time and again. She certainly did her part to raise my consciousness; unfortunately, I consistently failed to do mine.
About four or five years ago, it finally sank in that I needed to intervene regarding the state of my emotional well-being. I purposely began the process of “rewiring my brain” — which mainly consisted of listening to more joyful music that I had enjoyed in my youth, and doing my best to avoid slipping into downer-talk at any opportunity. Progress was not fast enough, though, and my attitude still regularly distressed my daughter. A breakthrough, of sorts, came after I launched this blog. The first two posts were my usual doom and gloom. Then my daughter asked if I actually liked the material I had written. I didn’t. I realized that my “rewiring my brain” project had largely failed, and that I would simply have to keep rigorously attuned to the state of my consciousness at every moment. And that has actually yielded small, but noticeable, successes.
This particular blog post is really meant only for my daughter. If you are reading this, and you are not my daughter (or her hubby), no problem. But this bit of writing is only meant for her. Sweetie: I am so grateful for your love, patience, persistence and endurance. You are my guiding light. Thank you.