Where am I today...

So it's Thursday, March 5th and I'm sitting on my couch next to my son. He's four years old and watching a dvd on and eating supper. We're starting to find our rythmn. It seemed when my wife first left our marital home and we were sharing custody (without issue) things with my son hadn't changed all that much. When he was with me he was in the home he had always known and sleeping in his own bed. Things were quasi-normal for him.

Then when the house was sold and I moved back to my parents home things changed. He was a bit withdrawn and I found myself to be a bit out of sorts myself. I wasn't comfortable in my parents home... it wasn't mine. It wasn't the house I took from bleek and out of style and comfort to a home I was proud to show off and took pride in sharing the projects I had taken on myself. I also didn't realize that no longer being in the home my son always knew as his, would make him need me to actively spend more time entertaining him, or else he would sit like a zombie in front of the tv. But mentally, I wasn't the best father. I was preoccupied with all of the clutter that had filled my life. The new job, the course I had signed up for (in hopes of furthering my career someday), the thoughts of the games my wife began to play with her lawyer, the loss of some friends we had as a couple, the loss of my in-laws whom I had always been very close with. I would spend time checking facebook and email looking for clues that might tell me what she was up to... trying to prepare myself in any way I could, so I'd win whatever battle she'd wage next. It was exhausting and pulled me from my son.

Finally one day, for some reason, I was standing in the kitchen using my laptop when I looked in at my son on the couch, where I sit right now, and he looked like a zombie watching tv. I couldn't be that Dad. I couldn't let my son's life with me pass by and him not have any real memories of time with me. I never got along with my father. I never had the fun memories with my father that my friends had with theirs... I had always promised that wouldn't be my relationship with my son, yet it was essentially happening. I shut my laptop and went in and snuggled him. I apologized to him and he asked for what. I didn't tell him why... that I had become a bad father... but I made a vow to myself that I would make great memories with him. Sure he wouldn't have the "picture perfect" cliched family you saw on tv when I was growing up, but it didn't mean he couldn't have the best relationship with his Dad... it didn't mean he had to grow up feeling like he missed out on something. It's been a couple of months since I had that revelation, but there are still days that I start to get preoccupied... but I catch myself and switch it off... the time with my son is valuable. Before I know it he'll be too big to want to spend time at home in the evenings with his Dad when he can be out with his friends. I'm going to enjoy it.

I still have a long road ahead of me... but where I am right now... sitting on a couch next to my son, just being is where I am today and where I want to be.