Category: raising kids

debts of regret

February 11th, 2023

Run through the emotions if they come about. There’s no sense hiding from them, fighting them. I spent a lot of my life pushing feelings into my gut. Letting them ball up there, then trying to drown them with as much alcohol as possible. If you ask me why, I’m not sure. Some say it’s learned behavior. Others, genetic. I’ve heard it’s important to know the beginnings, to identify the whys and how things come to be, but I hear lots of things. Every day. And when you hear so much, when the information is flowing in freely from all sides—this one and the others—it’s not easy to focus on one train of thought, to trace the blood through the veins to find out the true purpose of the heart.

So, now, instead of shutting out information and corralling any feelings associated, I pick and choose what to feel, and that means distilling information. Every zero and one may mean something. I don’t doubt there’s a bigger code to be recognized here, but I cannot understand how they string together to make sense. Not in the big picture. The whole scheme. The grand stage. I focus on the bits I can make sense of and save them up as I go. These bits will make sense one day, when I’m close to my end. I know it.

This is the same for all. We are creating our lives as we live. That’s the only way to do it. One cannot become too weighted down in the debts of regret. It’s futile, doesn’t make sense, and it will only stop you from doing what it is you’re meant to do so that you can create your best path possible.

Some travel easier roads than others, or so it seems. All of this moving and climbing and falling and loving and hating—it is all relative, after all. Measuring yourself against others makes no sense. We are not standardized tests. You are not your father, your mother, your brother, your wife, your kids, your lovers. You are you and you can do it—whatever IT is—and you can do it well, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to be your best when you don’t have a chip on your shoulder, have saddled yourself with all that’s gone wrong, and aren’t busy drinking yourself to death.

Life is simple, no matter how hard it gets. It boils down to this—make better choices. When that takes root, clarity comes. Slowly, but it does. Be prepared though, because with clarity comes the reckoning. An honest reveal, and often that can be hard to take, especially if you get past blaming others, balling up your feelings, and drinking yourself away. From IT.

~ KJ
The Dad Job

May 11th, 2022

I don’t know where it all goes.

They were here yesterday, soft and playful. Running around the house all day. Needing me. Not for the important stuff. Mom is always there for that. But for games and feats of strength. To reach things up high. Carry them upstairs to bed. Tell them stories. Just be there. Good old, trusty Dad.

Years have passed while I worked, ate, slept, and paid bills. Now, my son drives. Drops off his younger sister at middle school and then shuttles himself down the road to the high school. My kids live lives outside the home. Academics. Athletics. They’re getting smarter and stronger. Engaging in experiences that sharpen senses, develop skills, grow awareness, and deepen hearts. Establishing independence. So, these days, I am a tree or statue. Maybe a rock, I’m not sure. Sometimes they acknowledge me.

My daughter, “Dad, can you open this jar for me?”

My son, “Dad, the car won’t start.”

In these moments, I suddenly feel heroic. I catapult off the couch or spring up from my basement office to assist.

You need olives? I got that! Twist and pop!

Looks like the lights were left on, buddy. Let me show you how to jumpstart it.

My role is changing and my experiences as Dad, as a person, are evolving. Of course, my kids are always going to need me, but the whole point is to nurture, educate, and love them as best I can so they don’t. They are supposed to get out there into the wild, get better at living, and put more good into the world than bad.

My Dad job’s not done. It’s not one I’ll ever retire from. But now, some of my energy can be focused elsewhere. I get to continue my learning and my growth and have as much fun as I can until I can’t reach the top shelf. Open jars. Remember how to start the car. Or until I need to be picked up and carried upstairs to bed.

~ KJ
waking slow

May 4th, 2022

The sun brings on the day. Not headlines or pocketbooks. Definitely not desire. Fear plays no part in the cosmos. Those stars do what they do no matter what. Wish upon them all you want. The universe doesn’t care much about your Facebook posts. Your Twitter feed. What you’re wearing. Who you’re dreaming about. What you want to be whenever you stop being what everyone else expects you to be.

I’m up early and empty. I hear my kids waking for school.

My daughter’s footsteps sound little again. Not twelve-year-old heavy. More like four. I imagine her in a long nightshirt, coming downstairs, clutching lamby. Calling for Daddy. But those days have passed. Too soon already. She’s tall, wears eyeshadow. Is stiff as a board when I steal a hug.

Today, at a track meet, my boy will run and high jump and do things with his sixteen-year-old body that I never did. I’ll be there, watching. Wondering at the fact that now, I’ll never catch up to him. This same boy that ran and ran and ran with me across yards and fields.

My wife strolls through the house, light as a feather, talking to the cats, petting the dogs. She is what daybreak should be. She eases into morning better than anyone I’ve ever known. I love her for that.

Makes me think of Roethke and his The Waking.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

When did I get away from books? That big feeling that secrets were kept in letters strung together. Who knows? Desperation too early in life, I suppose. All that creativity and potential drowned in drinking. Trying too hard to be what I thought I’d be instead of learning by going where I had to go.

But all that bad decision-making, as well as some good, has brought me here. A new day in early May writing from the basement of our big old house with my family making sounds above. Silverware, plates, and bowls. Cupboards closed. Chair legs across the wooden floor. Backpacks zipping. The click of the trash can lid. And their footsteps, from room to room, place to place, getting them ready to go.

“This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.”

~ KJ
rambling on a snow day – bus moments

March 24th, 2022

A few days ago, I set up the basketball hoop in the driveway. My kids and I played. Around the world. Horse and pig. It’s been all shitty weather since. Not an issue, but tiresome. This is living in Michigan. Cold, warm, sun, snow, rain, hail, a breeze, a blustery wind storm—all of it can happen in a day’s time.

This morning, we wake to a thin layer of wet snow on slush and ice. And no school. This is where I am reminded of being a kid, helping get our bus unstuck one winter day. Just a group of kids pushing on a big yellow bus on a backroad. We loved it. It was fun. Part of the everyday adventure of a kid living in the country. Not that the bus got stuck often, but growing up in the 70s and 80s in a rural area seemed to put people in situations they simply aren’t in today. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

We got the bus out. The driver was ecstatic. We were only a little late for school. Some of us dirty, some of us wet. All of us excited and proud of what we had done. That would never fly today. Our bus driver would have been crucified. She was one of the best, strongest, most independent people I’ve ever encountered in my life. Fierce. Funny. Took no bullshit. She hugged us. Asked about what was going on at school, at home. She brought treats to us. Presents. Even let us play our cassette tapes on the bus. But she also broke up fights, kicked kids off buses, and stopped drunk parents from stepping onto the bus to snatch their kids up and take them to God knows where. She was a good human. She made me feel safe, secure, and made going to and from school tolerable. Today, some fame junkie would have Instagrammed her into jail.

That’s what I think about while sipping coffee. Waking slowly. Moving from here—our life of comfort and stability—to my childhood. Growing up.

A snow day now would not be a snow day then. We wouldn’t sleep in, either. Already, my brothers and I would be dressing to get out in it. The snow. The cold. The new day of possibility. If we had a fancy portable basketball hoop like the one in our driveway, we’d shovel so we could play. But we didn’t have as many distractions. Information so ready at our fingertips.

These keys. Doing their trick. Pulling me back there. Into whatever it was. As if it was a life separate from the one I live now. And it’s not. I’m still there, playing in the snow with my brothers. Riding that school bus on good days and bad. And I’m here now. And I’ll be here tomorrow. And so will my kids.

This experience. It changes and rolls out and over us in ways we don’t always understand. We can’t know the value of what we’re in, it seems, until we’re out of it. So, I hope, my kids will write about their lives one day. That they will remember their snow days and relive their bus moments, whatever they may be.

~ KJ
simple depth

March 21st, 2022

For me. For you. The blue overlays the white, but we fight for clarity as we march toward destiny—an everchanging, growing evolution of experience. We won’t settle, except for slow times when recharging is necessary. An hour on the couch to zone out or laugh, be amazed, or afraid. Two chapters in a chair to feed the soul. Music—always music—in the kitchen, the office, the cars. There’s not much time left, but all the time in the world. Our fortune grows every day. Through kindness and good deeds and doing the best we can for us—all the living and undead—encapsulated within this space. So, we monitor the surface but go deep as necessary to retrieve treasures. One of us will stay watch while the other finds what others are afraid to discover. We will wrestle it free, hold it tight, and rise to show the world. Because that’s what we’re here for. That’s what we’re meant to do. There’s magic everywhere and the finest finds are not always hidden. They are within the depths of simplicity. The underside of the leaf. The tips of earthworms. The sound of swans as they sail through the air. We can’t give up or sleep too long because there is always this work that needs to be done. For me. For you. For the sake of clarity.

~ KJ
they’re growing up

March 7th, 2022

artwork – old blue – © 2022 by Rita Stevens

All we need

we’ll take with us

when we go.

When we leave this place.

Move on to the next.

So, it’s okay

to enjoy

the plastic and metal,

the concrete and virtual.

Go ahead,

experience the highs

and lows.

Run,

walk.

Freefall.

Taste the salt of sweat and tears—our ocean.

Remember the puppies,

the ferret,

the porch full of stray cats,

a mouse in a box,

and birds.

Us, taking them all in,

no matter what.

Don’t forget the plastic turtle sandbox,

swing set,

and trampoline.

Trips to Bronner’s,

soccer fields,

our fishing spot.

Animal ice cream cones,

silks,

and

Camp Peace.

The walks

and hikes

and drives,

and how we always came back

to the big, old blue house.

That invisible connection

that will never break

and will always bring us

back

together again.

~ KJ
backroads

June 10th, 2021

Get in and ride.

Take the fork. Bend the spoon.

Let the roads expand perception and create our path.

Ignore the compass. Follow the shapeshifting clouds.

Climb the gravelly hill. Roll and brake down the sandy slope. Gas it through the water hole.

Let’s open the moonroof and the windows. Let the lake, earth and forest whirl up all around us, and let’s breathe it—deeply—over and over again.

The miles and miles of hope.

~ KJ
less

May 26th, 2021

Rain. The puddles. A grackle at the feeder. These are important today. It isn’t the buzz of the headlines. News twisted to push agendas. Keep them rich. Keep them poor. Sick, sick, sick. Buy, buy, buy. It’s the yellow-eyed black bird holding its long tail in a “V” as it scatters seed onto the porch.

There’s a church bench out there. A twelve-footer. Weathered by snow, wind, rain. The ups and downs of temperature. Waiting for anyone to take a seat. Though it was used only on Sundays, holidays, and special occasions in the past, it saw more action then. Now mostly, we walk past it. Coming and going as families do.

My daughter sits there most. Sometimes on her phone. Other times with a book. But I’ve looked out the window and seen her many times sitting quietly, watching birds, talking to clouds, petting or feeding stray cats. Lately, a spunky black one named Obsidian. She loves it like it’s her own.

I see more these days than I have in the past. Life has slowed. I pick and choose what will consume my energy, use up my time. I don’t waste efforts on what others want me to think because I have my own list of simplicities to explore.

~ KJ
guarding the nest

April 20th, 2021

Bird eggs. Some still looking intact. On sidewalks and lawns. Some broken in half, the middle oozing out. Others, just shell. We see them when we walk these days. It’s a wild time for nature. The foraging. Nesting. Sunlight, darkness, extreme changes of weather. Survival.

Last night, we purchased a fifty-pound bag of black, oiled, sunflower seeds and a ten-pound bag of cracked yellow corn with purple corn from Tractor Supply. I can’t help wondering if seeing all those birds never to be prompted the purchase. I opened the bags. My wife filled the feeders. The black squirrel found the seed immediately.

Not sure if there are always so many birds that don’t make it, or if we are just noticing it this Spring. I’ve seen eggs out of nests my whole life. Even baby birds. But I’ve never noticed them like this. So many. It’s as if birds are revolting. They know what’s coming. That all that work to bring babies into this world isn’t worth it. It’s too cruel. Too much pain, disappointment, worry. Or it’s that there’s nothing they can do. No matter how much they guard the nest, warm the eggs, they can’t fend off the predators. Blackbirds, crows, blue jays.

They keep trying. Have hope. But sometimes, no matter what you do, there are other plans out there, waiting to unfold.

It’s strange.

Yesterday, my daughter came downstairs. We’re all remote again. I’ve been here, working every day from the basement, since COVID started. But now, at least for a week or two, we’re all here—school, work, doing what we do. Anyway, she came downstairs during a break between class. She had doodled/sketched a bird in black ink. It’s either hanging upside down or rocketing through the sky. And next to it is the simple, beautiful word—Bird. In her eleven-year-old handwriting.

I love my kids. I’ll do whatever I can to help them succeed. To give them a leg up in this world. They are good, smart people, making good choices, doing what they can to enjoy life, please us, play by the rules. It’s sobering to think what waits. I know they will be okay, no matter what. But it’s hard because as they grow, there’s nothing I can do but hope. Guard the nest. Fend off the predators.

~ KJ
“Do it because…”

January 17th, 2021

10:41 am

Experience vs innocence. Hindsight vs being in the moment. Being a kid vs being an adult. And then, there are the varying degrees of personality, intellect, environment. The idea of nature vs nurture, or the blending of the two. There’s just a lot. And most of it isn’t something we consider when we pass through the living room several times a day only to see that our teenage son hasn’t left his spot on the couch for hours. It’s also hard to remember all the angles, degrees, and depths that make up each of us as an individual when our preteen daughter—smart as a whip—decides to say fuck it to school. She only likes doing what she likes to do.

Raising kids is work. It doesn’t get any easier even as they grow and I grow. If anything, it gets more complex because I move farther away from the hard lines of “Do it because I told you” or “Do it because that’s what you’re supposed to do” to moments of consideration.

What’s wrong with sitting on the couch all day? Who is he hurting? Aside from reminding him to put his empty bowls, cups and silverware in the sink, and put his wrappers in the garbage, what’s he doing that’s so bad? How is it affecting me? He earns good grades. He exercises two to three hours each day. I sat around plenty when I was younger, but most of that seemed to come after I moved out, got a job, and was able to support myself. I could sit for hours on a Saturday watching VH1 and movies. I ate junk food and drank booze. I didn’t exercise. I told myself I had earned that right to be lazy on the weekend. When I was a kid living at home, I did chores. Most of those related to firewood. Carrying wood, splitting wood, stacking wood. I also helped my parents. I vacuumed, did dishes, hung around my Dad when he was fixing a car, mowing the lawn, tinkering in the garage. Kids don’t do that now. Not mine. Not at this age. Not when they have the world at their fingertips on TV, the phone, a tablet, laptop, or desktop. Parents and the world they try to drag their kids into each day with the brushing of teeth, cleaning of rooms, and showering just isn’t all that fun. And really, when they see all that’s out there, why does any of what their parents think or say mean anything anyway?

I get it.

What’s the point in learning how light enters the eye and how we see the world important when what we want to do is draw pictures, write stories, and read? So what if my daughter fails a class? Big whoop if she is getting Ds. It’s middle school. Doesn’t matter, does it? Just because I did my best to get As and Bs so that I could show my parents doesn’t mean she has to. Grades are meaningless in the whole scheme of things, right? I mean, if you met my daughter and talked to her for a few minutes, you would be sure she was an A student. She’s smart. Witty. Creative. I really wasn’t all that when I was a kid. Our measure of success was our grades and the color of our lunch ticket. Blue for the regular kids. Pink for poor kids. Reduced lunch. Blue and pink. Interesting color choices, now that I think of it. Somehow, I was able to work my way up out of the pink tickets.

I base my success today on hard work and working smart. I made more good decisions than bad decisions. My parents instilled good qualities whether they meant to or not. I hope that’s what I’m doing with my kids. I’m not sure. My boy got off the couch this morning. He is up in his room. Playing a game on his phone, I’m sure. It’s Sunday. Enjoy yourself, I say. There’s plenty of time left for this world to make you work. My daughter is sitting behind me. When I asked what she was working on, she said that it was her personal narrative. An assignment not due for a week in a class she’s doing well in. I told her she should focus on the two classes she’s tanking in. She explained to me why it’s more important that she does her writing. She’s a good bullshitter. Maybe it will come in handy one day.

~ KJ