Our Better Side

Most of my career has been in businesses that delivered both goods and services to customers. My very first real job, one I did for the entire three years of high school, was at a full-service gas station. I pumped gas and washed windshields and checked oil and brought my customers whatever cartons of cigarettes they wanted. And you know what? I loved that job. It got me hooked. I liked taking care of what people wanted.

And I still do. But there is a catch to working in businesses that offer service to the general public: not everyone is nice. Not everyone is appreciative of good service. Not everyone even notices it. In fact, it is probably a fair statement when I say that a large portion of the population takes service--good, bad or otherwise--for granted.

Currently I work in the retail industry. There is really only one way to survive the retail industry wth your sanity, and that is to laugh it off. If you don't, then it will eventually eat you alive, particularly during the holidays.

I thought you might enjoy some of the people and things I have witnessed over the years, and so I offer them here. Please: if you recognize yourself or someone you love, don't tell me; and seek professional help immediately.

The Cellphoneus Addictedus - This beast's numbers are growing exponentially. Annoyingly so. It's okay that you feel such a love for an electronic communication device. Really, it is. And it is also okay that you are likely spending your time, great lengths of it actually, talking gossip with the neighbor that you could easily slip across the street and enjoy coffee with, gossiping vis-a-vis. I understand the concept of multi-tasking. But, what is not okay is that you have to ask me to help you find the very thing you have walked past several times because you have been absentmindedly chatting away with said neighbor. Even worse: forcing all of us at the checklane, myself and other customers alike, to listen in on your conversation because you can't seem to put away your phone long enough to check out. Never mind that I am doing my best to smile and deliver courteous and friendly and speedy service while you do so. That's not that important. However, you should not be surprised, when you get home, to find the five-pound dumbbell you picked up in sporting goods bagged on top of your grapes, or the ice cream snuggled nicely alongside the hot chicken you bought because you have no time to cook.

"IT'S MINE" - Can you ever imagine needing or wanting something so badly that you are willing to go to battle over it? No, I'm not talking oil fields; the item in dispute in the instance I witnessed in my first month of retail was a Christmas ornament that had gone clearance. It was the last of it's kind on the shelf the day after Christmas. It all started when two women both reached for it at the same time. At first, according to the employee who called me for help, it was merely a mildly heated discussion about who saw it first and who should be able to purchase it. From there it quickly escalated into a fairly loud argument that involved profane references to each other's relatives, heritage, and education levels. By the time I arrived, these two women--who in any other situation I would have described as typical suburbanite housewives--had arms cocked and fists drawn, ready to pelt each other to a bloody pulp, even if it meant doing the same to the frantic employee positioned between them. Over a Christmas ornament. Happy holidays.

The Crosswalk Kamikaze - I am yet to understand how a parking spot can be so prized that it can cause a full-grown adult to exhibit completely maniacal behavior. Is it a Prozac failure? Is it a competitive tendency gone wild? Certainly there has been a study done somewhere on this phenomena. There has to be an explanation of how someone can be oblivious to stop signs, hazard striped pavement lengths of thirty feet, and unsuspecting pedestrians, all in the frantic pursuit of being the first to get that stall that will save them just a few more steps.

The "If I scream loud enough I will get whatever ridiculous thing I want" Customer - Yes, you may, if you are a child of five and it is your parents that are having to deal with you. But not with me. In fact, my resistance to give in to your demand is directly proportional to your increase in volume. I actually have stages I go through with this type of person. First, when they get the attention of a manager (that's me) and temporarily reduce their volume from the level they were blasting at the unlucky employee, I listen, even with a little empathy. Then, at some point, I begin to realize they are being ludicrous, and I begin to replace your voice with that sound that Charlie Brown's teacher makes, that "Whah, whah whah, whah whah." After that, it's over. Go away. I'm an immovable object, if for no other reason than principle.

Deaf Mothers - There is no doubt in my mind that the process of pregnancy negatively impacts hearing. What other explanation could there be for the mother who drags their screaming child through every aisle of my store, and then through the checklanes, so that we all get to enjoy his tantrum? Ignoring your demon offspring is not working, so why make all the rest of us suffer? We are not allowed to wear earplugs or iPods at work, so wouldn't it be more courteous and considerate of you if you either left the building or stopped in at the sock and underwear aisle and purchase one or the other to stuff in their mouth?

Miss Manners Doesn't Live Here Anymore - This is a pet peeve of mine, even more so since I started helping at my friend's restaurant. As a sport, we sometimes track the number of times we actually hear "Could I have" or "please" or "thank you" during an evening shift. Then we compare it to the number of times we hear "Iwanna" or "Ineeda" as the first words out of a customer's mouth. Take a big guess which category wins, hands down, every night. Yep. And you know what else? I am probably only better at it now because of my experience on the other side of the counter. Shame on us. We should all collectively be feeling our mothers' hands smacking us on the top of our heads. Just try to remember this: a simple' polite request, no matter how frantic your day, or a "please" or "thank you" inserted somewhere in your request will be a small highlight to that service person's day, and will also likely get you better food and service. Conversely, your rudeness is going to increase your chances of biting into a heavy dose of Batch 81 hot sauce and excessive jalapenos when you go to enjoy your sandwich.

"They pay people to do that (for me, because it's all about me)!" - Here is a fact not known to most that have never worked in the retail industry: every night, in my store and thousands others, an average of eight people spend and average of six hours each just putting back on the shelves the hundreds of items that people decide they don't want and leave somewhere else in the store. We call it abandon. Well, in the store we call it that. Privately we call it slobbiness. Would you like the cost of your retail items to be lower? Here is a good way to start: put it back. Or, as a second and equally acceptable idea, just take it to the checklane and tell the cashier you changed your mind about it. We have a system for that, and it saves us the time of going out into the store and finding it all. The same idea could be applied to that shopping cart you are tempted to leave on the curb, in the empty parking spot, or hiked up on the landscaped island. Will it kill you to walk a few more steps? Another fun fact: I never find men's tools all over the store, but I do find a great deal of women's apparel. Hmmmm...

I am sure I have ranted enough. And I cannot claim to always be a shining example of courtesy or consideration whenever I am the guest or customer myself. But now that I have experience on the other side, I try a lot harder. I know that my few minutes of interaction with that service person is either going to enhance or detract from that person's day, and I would rather be remembered as someone that enhanced it.

I bet you would as well. Have a nice day. Please.

Originally published 11/6/09.

© 2009 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

Reconciling

A couple of summers ago the girls and I took a trip to Italy to visit Giorgia, the exchange student we had hosted the year before, and our informally adopted family member. We planned, prepared, and anticipated months for the trip, and the experiences we had there and the quality time that we got to spend with her and her family far exceeded our expectations. It was the trip of a lifetime.

The tearful goodbye between all of us at the airport in Milan that morning we left was just a precursor to the long and sleepless flight, the seemingly numb five-hour drive from Chicago, and the confusing few days thereafter. Normally I unpack my bags the moment I get home from any trip; it’s the closing punctuation mark, a way of tucking it away and getting on with the usual routine. But our suitcases sat for days, and I really struggled with coming back to the realities of work, of bills and laundry, cleaning house, running errands and getting to this and that event with the girls. I kept reliving memories of there and had a difficult time focusing on anything here.

I haven’t experienced feelings similar to that since. That is, until this week. I didn’t recognize it at first, but as a little time passed and I began to fully digest the last few days of thoughts and feelings I started to see the parallels. I struggled all week long to compose the essay you are now reading, one I knew I had to write somehow because too many things wanted to spill out on to page and the need to share too intense. At first it surfaced as a simple montage of memorable moments I had with people while I was there, but when I tried to write that it seemed to lack something, seemed to ignore something I couldn’t get my head around. Then I started another piece trying to talk about things everyone was expressing in common about that weekend, before, during, and after. Yet another one got started that was about what it all meant to me personally. For some reason, all of them felt incomplete and a little random, without a meaning that I thought everyone might either connect with or enjoy reading.

I spent weeks building up my anticipation of this past weekend, fueled mostly by the reconnection with so many friends on Facebook, whom I had not seen in far too many years. It was enough that we were all planning to see the game, have some pizza, and share a dinner the following night, but the chorus of responses to the idea of eating before the game only added to the fervor. Then came the news from Trina that she was flying in from California and suddenly the weekend couldn’t get here fast enough. By the time I got in the car to drive there, after little sleep, a lot of work, and too much coffee, I was at a peak. I jammed louder than I had for some time—which was good because it kept me alert—to tunes that I had not listened to for even longer. After arriving, I had trouble trying to get in a little sleep before going to meet everyone at Tomfooleries.

And then, I think from the moment I first stepped through the doors of that bar, I entered what seemed like a weekend-long state of euphoria. Thinking about it, just now, still prompts the urge to just write about some of the different moments I shared with people while I was there. Forgive me for while I humor that:

Trina: I didn’t want to let go that first hug when I saw you, and probably wouldn’t have had I not equally wanted to hold back the tears welling up.

I remember, exactly, the feelings of recognition and relief I had when I first heard Carl’s unmistakable and infectious laugh from across the room, and realized he was there.

Robert: At the Pizza Shoppe I offered to man the table a while so that you could get out and mingle with everyone like the rest of us. You turned me down and said that you were enjoying just watching everyone, and I recognized that you were—deservedly so—enjoying the sense of accomplishment you saw in everyone having fun, and that you had a hand in that.

I had the chance to sit and talk with Mark B. and put a little distance between the Cody that used to be his semi-tormentor in high school and the person that I feel I am now. Thanks, Mark. And thanks also for your comment that I have grown philosophical in my years, which I take as a compliment.

Mark also brought a treasure trove of memorabilia to the dinner. Among them: the final edition of the school newspaper from our senior year, across the front of which is sprawled the epic poem of teen angst I wrote those many years ago. Reading it again now was a conflict of embarrassment and pride.

Brad and Ruth: our walk and talk about kids and trips there in Parkville before dinner was a nice repose from the rest of the weekend. It helped remind me of some of the most important things in life waiting for me back home.

There was a bit of that ornery side of me that I felt surfaced, and I owe that to Jack. Seems like whenever you and I get together that happens, Jack. It is reflected in the photo of you and Mark and me.

Bill and Mary: we’ve stayed a little more connected over the years than I have with most, but seeing you there and getting to spend time with you was invaluable. My connection--however slight--with the two of you helps me feel grounded.

Sue, Jules, and Cindy: for some reason I think of the three of you collectively, probably a product of that time we all spent together at Nick and Jake’s. I am not sure I have laughed that hard in a very long time. Your sister Shelly, Sue, makes for the perfect comic sidekick. It was just plain fun.

I could go on forever, as we all probably could, but this piece is becoming incredibly long and rambling I think. So I’ll attempt to re-track.

There was a comment that Rob Nelson made during the conversations of Saturday evening that stuck with me. Rob mentioned that one of the reasons he was there, and there both nights, was because he knew that some of the people there had spent a lot of time and money to attend. In his comment I didn’t hear any sense of obligation, but instead consideration and appreciation. It reminded me of what I heard a great number of people reflect on while we were together, that everyone there was very genuine.

That thought first occurred to me during a contemplative moment I was having in the middle of the karaoke Friday night at Arthur’s. Yes, a strange time for deep thought, but it was my way of tuning out the karaoke, and I am sometimes prone to drawing back into thought and observation when I’m in the midst of a large group. But the thought which came to me, as I looked around the room at who was gathered there, was that we were an eclectic little group. Spin the clock back 30 years and you might not have seen the same group, not even at any of the big parties that happened then. We all had sets and subsets of different friends, that did or didn’t necessarily include the people that were there that night. Everyone was glad to be there, and just as glad that who was there had made the trip. There wasn’t any need to impress each other with stories of what we had done or were doing. There were no pretenses, just fun, and a sense of belonging. I don’t remember too much reminiscing or reliving of our Springsteenian Glory Days. I think we mostly spent time sharing about our lives now and what they have been since many of us saw each other, and sharing news of those who weren’t able to be there with us.

That is who we are now: genuine people. Our lives, our experiences, have stripped away the insecurities of our youth, and what has surfaced is what is genuine about us and has always been. I think we all recognized it in each other back then, even though it was difficult—for ourselves as much as others—to see through the mists of adolescence. And it’s what drew us all back together last weekend, what we all enjoyed most. It is no surprise that we all had so much fun together and that we all had so many feelings of gratitude to share with each other on Facebook the hours and days afterward. It’s hard to let go of it.

Which brings me around to other feelings I have been dealing with over this last week. Along with the enjoyment of reliving that fun, I have been coming down from it was well, in much the same way that I had to do when I returned from Italy. Life has to get back to normal. And in a way, life last weekend seemed a little incongruent with the way my life has been these last few years. It’s wrapped up in something I have mentioned in a note before, about being a father, a single father, about not dating and being a responsible example to my girls. And I probably owe a conversation with Trina to my exploration of these feelings.

Trina and I ducked away for a quiet drink, removed from the mayhem, so that we could catch up on things. At one point Trina asked me, “So, how is your love life?” and I remember giving her, at first, my stock response, which is a shrug of the shoulder followed by “Fine, it doesn’t exist.” Beyond that is usually a rationalization about how working two jobs, raising the girls, running, and writing leaves little time for anything else. Somewhere I throw in there that the girls are most important and deserve my focus, and that I am satisfied with my life. But in trying to express that to Trina it felt like I was, and have been, whistling past the graveyard. I had to be truthful, that I had at times felt like it was not ever going to happen for me again because I was just not the kind of person that would be interesting to someone again. My youthful looks had matured, I was divorced, in my forties, had two young girls, no time for a social life, and not exactly financially secure.

“Did Cody lose his Mojo?” she asked. Trina has a splendidly candid way of putting things. I have. Or did. And what’s more: I’m the one (if I can assume I ever really had it) who tucked it away in the closet.

When I remember some of the fun of the last weekend I also remember how some of it made me feel, well…a little attractive again. But in settling back into the routines and responsibilities here, it became easy to feel conflict with those times and this life, and to return to the tendencies that the two were separate, and always should be. I even worried about my new Facebook photo and how I thought it was hilarious, but that I probably should remove it before Megan or Kylee saw it, particularly Megan. She has this little thing she does with me if we are out somewhere together: she is very adept at noticing when I notice an attractive woman, and quick to zing me with a “Dad, stop it!”

But, Megan saw the photo last night, and she laughed at it. And in that singular moment, a number of things came together for me. The person of last weekend and the person of this week are one and the same. It is okay to be both, and it is okay to be both for my daughters, to let them see that. It is okay to have fun, to be myself, and to take time for myself without feeling it is selfish. In a watershed of realization, I came to understand that last weekend was not a brief, isolated, piece of my life, but instead an integral part of it. It’s a thread, not a patch.

And it all snapped together: the fun, the feelings I was having, the difficulty in writing about the weekend, the note from Giorgia on the way home about how much she misses us, Megan’s laugh…it all came to the epiphany that produced this essay.

Originally published 10/29/09.

© 2009 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

The Circular Healing of Reunion

Over the course of my life I have, on occasion, hit the reset button. In the face of change--some by choice and others (like recent) not so much by choice, I have set out on a significantly different path than the one I may have had just the day, or days before. In the wake of some of those redirections I have sometimes left behind friendships I should or could have maintained, neighborhoods, at times even family.

Maybe we have all, to a lesser or some degree, done the same. Lives change, careers change. We grow in one direction or another, and before we know it we are slowly or suddenly someone completely different than we used to be or imagined we may one day be. Our lives get busy in our new choices and the significance of those who used to be important to us, even a part of our daily lives in some cases, slips away.

I left Kansas City initially—thirty years ago—in disgust. I was unhappy both at home and socially and languishing in a fit of indecision; I had watched many of my friends leave for school and managed to get myself into a minor scrape with the law. I remember, at the time, feeling a great deal of anger, all misdirected, at people I thought had devalued me because of the trouble I had gotten myself into. I was resolved to walk away. Little did I know how wrong I had it all.

I vividly remember the day I left ; suddenly moved to a southern Missouri town with a Baptist college. They had convinced me that it was exactly the kind of place I needed to get my life back on track, where the environment limited my opportunities to find trouble and the campus might resurface my intellectual abilities. I think my brother had even higher hopes of resurrecting my interest in God and religion, but he was completely unaware of my resolve and convictions already formed by that time in my life. It wasn’t happening. Quite the opposite, it only added bricks. I was dropped into Small Town, America, surrounded by a host of people that knew nothing about me nor I them, and I was off on my new direction. Strings were pulled, and in a period of about 24 hours I had taken an ACT and enrolled in a college I had never even visited.

It didn't take long for me to find kindred spirits; by the end of the first semester there I had a circle of new friends, some belonging on that campus about as much as I did, others just a little on the ornery side. I began to feel comfortable again. The friendships I made there still run deep for me. But after a couple of years we all disbanded for one reason or another. Some ran out of money for school (it was the Reaganomics years), some ran out of willpower. I think that within the space of a couple of weeks I decided to leave school and start a full-time career, tanked a class or two, and hit the road. It was time for another new direction.

What followed was a nomadic, eleven-year stretch with a railroad contractor, where I could travel all over the country for about nine months out of the year and spend winters at home. It was the perfect fit for me at the time; about the time I tired of being in the familiar for three months it was time to hit the road, and on the road I could be in a different town every night. There wasn't even a consistency in the few months I spent at home. At one point I lived with friends in the old neighborhoods, then moved downtown for another winter, then in with someone who was to be my first major relationship. It was then I ran off into my bohemian years, where I was anything but career minded or responsible. I probably did things to my body then that I will someday regret, even though I refuse to dismiss those years of my life with any sense of guilt.

That relationship changed, then ended, and I turned my focus on to moving things ahead with my career. I cut my hair, sold the house, moved to Illinois, and things started happening for me. Then came my next relationship, marriage, and shortly after, kids and years of suburbia and cars and houses and all the trappings. As a family we relocated several times for my work, and it all seemed like it was just another step in the process. Each home and neighborhood seemd like a stepping stone to the next. We enjoyed every neighbor we made friends with, and thought that each one was someone we would surely keep in touch with, but time and priorities and every day life slowly faded them all to memory.

Divorce was the next major milestone. Things got dark for a while. Then they got better. Then dark again. Then better. Then better, longer. Nowadays they stay mostly better, with a sprinkling of dark here and there (when the girls are away). Life is pretty good, though.

Then, in the midst of winter, where the weather and psyche seem parallel, Megan convinced me that I should get on Facebook. "Dad," she said, "mom got on Facebook and she has heard from a lot of her old friends from when she was younger. Everyone is doing it!" One of the best ways to convince me to not do something is to tell me that "everyone" is doing it. Even more so when you tell me my ex is doing it. But, my curiosity got the best of me and I took a peek at it. Then curiosity nudged me a little further and I logged on. I populated my profile, not really sure of what I was doing, but positive that I was going through an exercise in futility.

I was wrong.

Suddenly I was talking with old friends I was sure had either long written me off, were angry that I had never stayed in touch, or whose lives were vastly different than mine and to which I had no relevant connection. Each new contact seemed to be, sadly enough, an affirmation, a reconnection that told me that the ghosts and feelings of disconnect I carried where my own creation, and that I was a little more valued than I believed.

I first got to enjoy chatting with an old friend who went west and whom I never should have let out of my life. Then I bumped into another friend it was fun to reminisce with over the phone all night one night. I found my old partner in "crime," and the two of us put some closure to an open end we both had long lived with, and discovered the fascinating number of parallels in our lives since. There has been the friend or two that I have only had time for a brief word with, feeling better just to know they are out there, still around, and have not befallen some fate that we all have risk of, given the years we have under us. Then there was the friend who reminded me how one kind deed, one that I had long forgotten and not really known the significance of, impacted her life and maybe the lives of some other women as well.

I would be the last to extoll the benefits of cyber social networking, but when I look at some of the connections and reconnections I have made, it's almost as if there is a common, bonded message emanating from the little screen in front of me. I think it goes something like this:

"Helllo, old friend. There you are. I've wondered about you from time to time over these years. It's good to see you are well. It looks like our hearts are still the same, even though we look and act a little different. We are shaped. Our experiences, be they joys or trials, have become our wealth. And we see everything from a different perspective, probably a more healthy one. We're all good."

So I think I have come full circle, back to where things were--and are again--a little simpler, and with people who really knew me and still know me for who I was before I headed out into the Chill and morphed into what was expected of me to succeed.

It feels good here. I think I'll hang a while.

Originally published 7/11/09

© 2009 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

The Strength Within

The early years of Kylee's life were a test for all of us.

When she was merely a few weeks old she contracted RSV, a respiratory virus that, I am told, is fairly common and equally undefined. To this day I am still a little in awe of just how close we came to losing her during the first few days of that illness. It didn’t seem so at the time. We asked a great deal of questions, kept vigil at her bedside day and night, and watched her blood oxygen level like hawks, all the while not recognizing that in her shallow, labored, congested breaths there was a real danger she would not be able to draw the next one.

But she rebounded from that, and raising Kylee returned to normal for at least a little while. Then, at six months, she somehow came down with salmonella poisoning. We never figured out how the heck she came up with this one, and neither could the state health department. We didn’t own any reptile pets. She was the only one in the family to come down with it. We had not eaten chicken for as long as we could remember. I remember answering a confident “no” to all the other questions the person from the health department asked me on the phone, and so today it still remains a mystery.

Shortly before her second birthday Kylee was riding piggyback on her mother’s back during an afternoon of play at home and lost her grip. On the way down, she hit her arm on a bedside table and produced a hairline fracture in her forearm. The fall was so slow that Michelle didn’t think it could be a break until Kylee continued to cry and complain about it for longer than usual, and even the doctor in the emergency room didn’t think it could be a break. He handed her an ice cream cone, and when she grabbed at it and began lapping at it through a smile, he proclaimed it a sound bone without x-rays. It wasn’t until two weeks later when we noticed her favoring it at a dance that we had it examined again and had they put it in a cast.

Not long after that we began to notice that Kylee had an eye that seemed to be tracking just a little bit different than the other. Instantly, we were struck with the fear that this was yet another injury from her seemingly mild fall, and so we got her in to see an optometrist. She was diagnosed with strabismus—wondering eye, as it is known to most—and scheduled for surgery a few weeks later with one of the best eye surgeons in the Midwest that, thankfully, practiced in the same town. That was fun; try getting a two-year old through major eye surgery sometime. She was sick for two days after and I thought we were going to have to tie her hands behind her back for weeks for fear that she was going to rub them.

At about four years old Kylee’s respiratory challenges returned in a mild form of asthma. This we discovered through a bout of flu that landed her in the hospital, one of several. Kylee had a pattern we learned to predict whenever she came down with the flu. First she would wane in energy and develop fever, then she would quit eating, and then—despite all our best efforts and pleadings—she would quit drinking. Once we hit that stage, it was off to the emergency room to put her on IV fluids until she felt better enough to take in nourishment. We experienced this cycle for about the next three years.

Next came shingles. Yes, shingles. It's something I always attributed to people with stress and nerve disorders and far older than Kylee's years. Apparently it is also an offshoot of the same virus as Chickenpox and can be the result of having had the vaccination for chickenpox they offer for newborns these days. Megan came down with chickenpox the day that Kylee was born, so we thought we were being prudent and protective parents by haveing Kylee vaccinated.

Then, it stopped. We waited weeks and then months for the next health issue, exotic or otherwise, but the other shoe never dropped. Kylee went a year without any emergency room trips, impromptu doctor’s visits, or days off from school even. The nebulizer sat idle on the closet. At first we thought we were just experiencing a lucky phase, and then we gradually grew less and less concerned. At some point our only reminder of Kylee’s past difficulties came in the form of a call about her annual eye appointment. One day Michelle and I looked at each other and realized that it had been at least a couple of years since we had been to the emergency room for anything.

To see and know Kylee now, you would never have any idea of what she has been through. She is a perfectly healthy nine-year-old little girl. Every morning she awakens with the vibrant enthusiasm of someone that knows there is something new and exciting waiting for her at school or just outside the door of our home. When the weather is warm, there is hardly anything that can keep her inside. Inside, she reads aloud—loudly so—as if the contents of what she reads are alive and happening right before her eyes. She has been through a Tae Kwon Do phase, a dance phase, a soccer phase, and currently still engrossed in her gymnastics phase. She has approached each with the same vigor; she lives for the next week’s appointed time where she can be with others enjoying the activity she so looks forward to.

At parent-teacher conferences each year we get the same report from her teachers about how bright she is and how much energy she brings to the classroom. Her enthusiasm is matched by her charm, and she tends to wrap her teachers around her tiny finger. Her father, as well.

She almost never displays anxiety; I have to be vigilant for the almost imperceptible signs of something worrying her or frightening her. She’s been through a split of the family, several moves, the loss of the family home, the loss of the family pet, and yet she continues to plow through life like the Eveready Bunny.

Kylee’s approach to life at her age, when I think about the contrast of it against her early years, is a source of inspiration to me. I don’t know that she is exceptionally strong, but I know she is exceptionally strong-willed. Whatever she lacks in the physical—she is still a small girl compared with many her age—she more than makes up for in her determination, curiosity, and desire.

For a brief period her fierce will was most evident in her defiance to boundaries and disciplining. I remember a few times where her time-outs were patience-racking minutes of listening to her stomp her feet and cry at the top of her lungs. I knew then that she saw herself strong, and at several points found myself doing a balancing act with the way I tried to guide her. I didn’t want to quash the will in my efforts to teach her what I thought she needed to learn.

But those angry expressions of independence, like her health problems, fell away, and fell away with about as much notice. As I write this I am trying to remember the last time I heard her cry, or stomp her feet, or storm off to another place in the house in a pouting fit. Odd: remembering those things almost makes me miss them a little.

Like any father, I wonder what lies in the years ahead for Kylee and Megan. What will change about the way they are now when they venture out and require less of me and stand more on their own in their decisions and actions? Have I done everything that I can to prepare them, or have I made mistakes along the way that has caused some irrevocable harm and ill-prepared them for the challenges they will face? I have always thought that the best way to ward off the dangers of peer pressures and temptations was to make a child feel loved and secure at home. A strong family keeps the world away. Enough love at home prevents the need to seek acceptance and self-perception externally, a social environ and world rich in risks and dangers. But accomplishing that, creating and sustaining that blanket of security and balancing it with the lessons of independence and self-reliance, has been the monumental task of parenting, at least for me.

I hope, again—like any father, that I have made more good decisions than bad. I hope that what I see in them now is what I will continue to see in both of them in the next few years of adolescence. I hope that even later, when they enter the world of careers and mortgages and bills and raising their own children—my world now—that it will still be with them then. And I hope their children are as much an inspiration to them as they are to me.

Filling Voids

Monday morning marked the start of Spring break for the girls. It’s a time of bliss; no homework or teachers to torment their lives for a solid week. For me it began that morning with a drive to the halfway point between here and Kansas City to meet their grandmother on their mother’s side. I didn’t mind doing the drive since it meant I got to spend a little more quality time with them. It gave me a solid hour and a half more of watching Megan text and Kylee listen to her iPod.

But it also gave me a return trip of what I like to call Contemplative Windshield Time, which can be golden. It’s that time where you can mentally fix just about everything that is wrong with your world, everyone else’s world, and the whole world in general. That morning I was pretty sure, by the time I put the car back in park, that I had the global financial crisis turned around. I almost called NPR with my answers.

Walking up to the door I remembered it was going to be another one of those entire weeks without the girls. Damn! I was trying my best not to think of that, or at least avoid thinking about it for as long as I could. Eventually I knew it would creep back in there, somewhere about the time I came home to the silence or ate one too many meals by myself. I can never push it off entirely.

The first time this happened was the week of Christmas a couple of months after Michelle had moved out. We were all planned for a trip to her father’s for that Christmas, tickets in hand and everything, when things came to that point you just can’t avoid any longer. I guess I could have been a jerk about it then but didn’t see the point of robbing the girls of a trip they had looked forward to and time with their cousins in the warm climate of the southwest. “Sure,” I said, when Michelle nervously asked about them doing the trip anyway, not even really anticipating anything about what it would be like to be without them for the holidays. When it finally dawned on me that I would be spending that much time alone and could easily slide off into a holiday funk, I was determined not to let it do so. I was braver than that, stronger than that. I would rise above the dismal gray of winter and be merry and gay (easy there) and productive with my time. I would volunteer.

And volunteer I did. That first Christmas I found a family in need through the Santa letters collected at the main post office downtown. I recruited several friends and peers at work and we managed to put together a large Christmas meal, a bundle of much needed clothes, and a few toys—for fun’s sake—for the family. I delivered it Christmas morning after making arrangements with the mother. I couldn’t help but hang back in my car after leaving it on the doorstep and ringing the bell. I felt more human that morning than I had in a long time. That Christmas was a special one for me, even without the girls.

I took that feeling and ran with it for the next two years. I joined Big Brothers Big Sisters. I volunteered time for my soccer league in addition to coaching both Kylee and Megan’s teams, and collected equipment and uniforms for kids that might need it. I got involved with exchange students. I think I was also the only Den Father on record for Megan’s Girl Scout troop. All the while I felt good about what I was doing and thought I was offering a great example to the girls about giving back, about caring about others, about looking out from within your self.

Then one day a friend told me, when I was bemoaning how busy my life had become, that I might be taking too much time for others and not for myself. This same friend also thought that maybe I was filling voids with my volunteering. I dismissed it at the time, but later had to admit to myself that filling voids was how it all had started and that they were probably right. Still, I told myself that there were worse ways to fill that void, that mine was a noble pursuit, and I found it hard to give up once I came to a point where I simply had to. Our lives changed a little and charity had to begin at home. The time and expense of my volunteering had to give way to the economy and a need to focus even more on the girls. It was the right move.

But what that left me, with weeks like this week, was the return of the void. So on the drive back from delivering the girls, somewhere between fixing the world economy and preventing global warming, I made a mental list of things to fill my time this week:

1. Catch up on studying my Italian.
2. Write furiously on this blog.
3. Spring cleaning, and then a little more cleaning.
4. Catch a few March Madness games (GO TARHEELS!)
5. Detail the car.
6. Write that great American novel I have been threatening to do for years.
7. Swap out the winter and summer clothes in the closet space.

All very exciting stuff, huh? And noticeably absent of any social activity. I was discussing this with yet another friend (yes, I have more than one) when I got another piece of advice, that maybe my identity and existence was too wrapped up in the girls.

Hmmmm. I hate it when advice like that is so dead on.

I’d never thought of it that way. I knew I was, by design, not dating and not out there really doing much of anything for myself, socially or otherwise. I thought I had pretty good reasoning in doing so. The dating scene really didn’t work for me when I tried it for a while, and everything else had to fit around work or time when the girls were with me. I resolved myself to being a father and father only, because it was the simpler life that felt and fit right. Some have argued that I have limited myself, that I need to take time for myself, and that I need to adjust to the new life where the girls are not with me every day and find a way to make myself a happier camper. Their arguments are not lost on me.

But then I come back around to the one question I can’t answer: why would, or should, anyone ever resolve to accept not seeing and being with their children every day of their life (within reason until they turn the age of thirty-something)? Why would it ever be okay?

It shouldn’t. The closest I've ever gotten to an answer for that was in telling myself that making the best of a less-than-ideal situation is what we all must do. That survivors—and I pride myself on being one, given my history—rise above life’s challenges and overcome them. I get that.

I found that the better way to attack the problem, actually, was to tell myself their time away is a reality I can’t alter, and dwelling on it idly when alone is self-indulgent and wasteful and a bad example for them. I would want them to do differently, so I should. It doesn’t mean that I have to accept it, but I can choose to distract myself from it even though I dislike it. How, is less a problem for me.

And so, if you don’t mind, there’s a closet back there calling my name.

Modern Communication

I still shake my head when I remember a scene I walked in on recently at my place.

Megan had invited a friend over for the night, and when I came through the front door after work, I found all three of the girls in the living room. Kylee was exhibiting a skill, that to this day still amazes me, where someone can listen to an i-pod and watch television simultaneously. Megan was sitting at the desk, intensely focused on the desktop screen and typing away. Not more than ten feet away in a chair was her friend, my laptop perched on her outstretched legs and typing furiously.

"What's up girls?"

"We're talking."

"Oh." The quiet in the room, other than the sound of the television and the faint music I could hear from Kylee's i-pod, puzzled me. I pressed.

"Talking?"

"Yeah, we're IM'ing."

Amazing. Two people found it more interesting to reach out through keyboards and the vast distances of cyberspace in order to connect with each other in the same room and just a short few feet from each other.

Even better: I walked into Megan's room one night and found her and a friend lounged across her bed, close enough to touch, texting each other on their cell phones.

Megan's cell phone and her texting have been a difficulty for me. On one hand, I like the fact that it makes her more available (when she chooses to answer it). I know it to be a constant fixture in her hand, so I know that wherever she is, it's with her and I can be with her also. But I have also found it disappointing how much of a distraction it can be. On the way somewhere together in the car she will flip it open every few seconds to either answer or initiate some message. When she is not actually texting, I sense that she is mentally involved in some conversation that is happening with some invisible person somewhere out there, wherever "there" may be, and only physically present with us in the car.

Technology and every year of age brings a different kind of challenge in talking, teaching, or listening to my kids. I remember a vow I made to myself when I was first a father, that I would work hard at a relationship with the girls and that it would be based on solid, trusting, and open communication between us. I had grand visions; I pictured a future where the girls and I could talk about anything. I imagined evenings around the dinner table where we would all share the good or bad about our daily routines. I hoped for moments where I would be superbly intuitive and get a flood of emotional outpouring from them when I asked what might be troubling them. There would be teen years ahead where I would be as close a confidante for them as any friend they had at school or elsewhere. I saw myself explaining the "why" behind every parental direction, advice, or rule. I was certain that I could do it differently than anything I had ever seen before in my life.

But in my earnest desire I failed to recognize a couple of things, things that I had been taught or told and could have done better to remember. The first of those things was that I was going to be a product of my own environment, and would be prone to making similar mistakes just by virtue of the example I grew up with. So when the moment of frustration arrived where I, for the first time, heard myself proclaim “Because I said so!” as a response to the repeated objections Megan threw at me about why her bed had to be made or her room cleaned, I was instantly thrown into an out-of-body experience, watching myself do the same things I saw my father or mother do or say when I was a kid.

I actually took a moment to reflect on the first time that happened, and asked myself what I could have said or done differently. I had a hard time finding any answers. I retraced all the steps of the discussion and tried to understand each turn of emotion and what was said, looking for how I could have gained Megan’s commitment rather than her compliance. Within a few minutes time I decided that I was a complete failure as a father, that the free world was in jeopardy and Armageddon loomed on the immediate horizon. Then, almost as easily, I remembered that I was also human and that I would never be a perfect father, nor would Megan ever be the perfect daughter. That helped.

But the other thing I failed to remember was something I learned in college communication courses, that every communication involves a transmission and a reception. The space between the two is called interference, and with good reason. Any number of things can get in the way of the message as it traverses that space and distort the intention or the perception. I always thought I could overcome that one by trying to explain everything, by being the kind of father that took the time to also give the “why.” I didn’t anticipate the “why” coming back at me as argument.

I later dissected the same conversation and came up with what each of us might have heard at a certain point:

Me: “Megan, you need to make your bed and clean your room, please.” (Heard: I am your father and I want you to do this thing for me even though it means absolutely nothing to you.)

Megan: “Why? It’s just going to get messed up again in a few hours!” (Heard: What is important to you means absolutely nothing to me, and I don’t care if that hurts your feelings. And, oh, by the way, I AM TESTING YOUR AUTHORITY HERE!)

Later, after I had left the room and Megan in it, I came up with all sorts of good reasons for her “why.” I am pretty good at that, winning arguments by myself after the fact. I wanted her to learn and exercise responsibility and cleanliness. I wanted her to show discipline. I wanted her to take pride in her belongings and environment and take care of it. These were things I thought she needed to learn. But none of that came out or came through in the “Because I said so!” I eventually declared, and every way I tried to explain those things to her before we reached that point failed.

At some point I came around to the question I had to ask of myself: was this important for Megan to learn, or was it more important to me to have done? Was this an important battle to fight, or was it an opportunity for understanding, compromise, or a learning moment for the both of us to share. I imagined a conversation where I shared all of these questions with Megan and the two of us talked through it, laughing it off and understanding each other better.

Then I realized I was in Fantasy Father Land again and came to my senses. It wasn't going to happen. I've tried something similar before, and every time I have prefaced some conversation with Megan with "something I'd like to talk to you about" I've gotten the immediate eye roll. She listened and heard me during those conversations, but I am pretty sure she also mentally composed her next text message at the same time.

As trite as it sounds, it is still true that some things never change. And where communication is concerned, some lessons may be best learned by only one of us: the one who is supposed to be the smarter and more mature of the two.

The Unconditional Phase

People often talk about the admiration a dog has of their owner as the purest example of unconditional love. It's something I think we all aspire to as lovers, spouses, and parents, but possibly never achieve to a level or success we all hope for. The instinct to protect ourselves kicks in too easily.

I've been a dog lover much of my life. For most of my adult years I had a best friend, Bronte, a part-chow, part-retreiver that was with me for fifteen years. He made it with me through three relationships and six moves before I lost him a couple of summers ago. I used to quip that I only lived with either of my parents eight years, had my longest girlfriend relationship for 7 years, and was married 11 years, making him the longest standing relationship of my life. That is either a testament to our enduring friendship or a sad statement of fact about my relationship skills. You pick.

I learned a great deal from that dog, but most of all I recognized what he taught me about love, believe it or not. It was a fluke that we ever met; the girl I was living with at the time--make that coasting with--brought him into the house from a torrential downpour. I put up a mild objection, then folded like a cheap tent as he nuzzled my leg. He and I became attached, and I took over his primary care. Not much later, she exited, he stayed, and I learned even more about caring for someone that totally depends on you. The return you get is only in the form of the intangible: affection, someone always glad when you get home, puts up with whatever mood you might be in and seems bent on changing it to the better. At some point I learned that was enough.

Thankfully, this lesson came before either one of my daughters were born. In fact, it may be the chief reason they were born. I was, at the time, a pretty hard case, twice burned in relationships and fairly dedicated to the idea that the only person looking out for you was you. But the damn dog kind of softened me up a bit and opened the door a crack to let in a genuine, human-type relationship. Funny that a dog would do that.

Fast forward a couple of years, past a wedding ceremony and about a year of marriage, to the point where Megan was born. Like Bronte, she was somewhat unexpected ("We were trying?" I think was my response to the news), but easy to love. When she arrived I experienced a mixed bag of feelings ranging from swelling pride to incredible fear. I couldn't believe I created this life--this insanely cute little being--and I was frightened to death by the realization that her health and well-being and psyche were completely my responsibility. For years.

The parallels between my dog and my daughter were not lost on me, and I began to practice what I learned from one in my relationship and care of the other. I was not disappointed in the returns from those applied lessons. Like every parent, I came to know the joy of a toddler's greeting at the door when I arrived home from a day at work; it melted away the worst of work-related tensions carried home. Then came their gratitude for having attended their Christmas programs, coached their soccer games, or when I drove them and a gaggle of friends to the mall for a day of shopping and movies. But this has all happened in too rapid a succession.

A couple of weeks ago I recognized a change took place right under my nose, where possibly the dependency lessened and roles reversed. For me, this was a sudden realization (see previous blog) brought on by a milestone event between Megan and me, but the definition of it didn't become evident to me until I examined the differences in my relationships with Megan and Kylee.

Kylee is nine and still dependent for everything. Her social world still revolves around me for the most part. She requests little, demands even less, always demonstrates love and respect, and loves to do things with me. She thinks it is cool that her dad can still do a handstand on a skateboard, plays chess with her, lets her read to him at night, and loves whatever I make for dinner. In her eyes, I still stand on the mountain top, cape flowing behind me in the breeze, warding off all things fearful and generally making the world both fun and safe.

Megan, on the other hand, has reached a point in her life where she is trying to determine where she needs me and where not. She wants to develop her own identity and self-reliance but still wants to know that I am the safety net that is there without fail. The ways in which she finds to demonstrate her independence are remarkable. She has become incredibly adept at the eye-roll response to any advice or direction I give her she has deemed irrelevant. The music that we both used to enjoy is now labeled "ancient" and she reaches to change the station on the car stereo the moment we jump in the car. I hear less and less about her life at school our outside of it. She knows me to be a neat freak, so I am sure it was by design that the floor of her bedroom disappeared under a pile of clothes of indistinguishable laundry status. I lost the battle to keep her out of PG-13 movies before she even turned twelve.

Megan and I have entered into a reversed-role phase of the unconditional, where I will have to patiently be that safety net, demonstrate to her that no matter what she does or says I will always love her, trust her, protect her, and adore her. And I'll have to do so with the characteristically canine level of expectations of anything in return.