The Comfort of Closeness
June 23, 2017
Dearest Solomon,
This week I am happy I don’t think know so many y people. I find it hard to reconcile the words they use and the actions they take. Earlier this week, I made the comment: “Tonight’s elections confirm my worst fears about humanity. People can’t be trusted to do what’s good for others, just themselves.” The world just has me in a funk.
It makes we yearn for those days as a boy, when the troubles of the world were unknown. When we rode our bikes everywhere, helmets be damned. When every day was both well-defined and completely open-ended. Everything is possible until you stare down reality. Then the possible becomes impossible, even unfathomable.
In times like these, I find there is great comfort in closeness. When we’re scared, upset, happy, sad, we want to return back to the place we felt safest. Sometimes that’s a period of time, other times it’s some nostalgic item, but most of the time, it’s actually someone that you return to. Never underestimate the power of touch. We are creatures of comfort, despite everything technology, society and politics may try to assure us otherwise.
This week was your first at day care. You have confirmed every part of my understanding of you, an adaptive, resilient little boy still taking in the world. As the first day passed, on the 3rd and 4th mornings I saw that you, too, clung to comfort (me or your mom) in the mornings as we dropped you off. Those moments are so poignant, filled with the sadness of ever having to cause you sadness and the knowledge that that precisely is what you need.
Don’t mistake my saltiness for despair. This storm will pass, but sometimes, shelter can’t come fast enough. I remain eternally an optimist, because optimism is the only way to make the world a better place for you.
Hope is never far away, just wipe your eyes.
Love always,
Dad
