Hey Girl
A rather open letter to my daughter.
The humor of the title of this will be completely lost by the time you are old enough to read this (let alone care to read this). It has to do with that old actor guy Ryan Gosling. Okay, enough jokes. (I know, daddy with no jokes? What’s that like!)
So, my darling daughter (I will refrain from calling you beautiful though I’m sure you are — I don’t want you to think I define you by that alone—I know you are SO much more too) I’m writing this probably most for myself, but think one day it will be meaningful to you. It may not be until perhaps you yourself are a parent.
Earlier this evening I came upon a picture of me holding you when you were a mere six weeks old. To think back to those first few months, maybe even year with you, I can’t help but be thankful that you are as wonderful a little person as you are. Daddy was not always great. Daddy was not the superhero you probably grew up thinking.
We don’t often think of our parents as actual people.
I recall looking to my mom and dad for SO much, just expecting them to know everything. Grandma and Abuelo were great parents to me. They were fair, always supportive, loving and saints (in my eyes) for having four, yes FOUR, kids of their own. I honestly don’t know how they didn’t lose their minds with us. I barely kept my cool with just you.
But, they were also people before we came along—people with dreams, personalities, flaws, hobbies, habits, jobs, worries, friends, family, fears and all kinds of other characteristics good and bad. And despite what little daddy thought as a kid, they probably didn’t know everything. AND, they didn’t have technology at their fingertips to just look things up. (Which I’m sure was very helpful to mommy and daddy as you grew up asking all kinds of wonderful questions.) (I apologize now, retroactively, for sometimes being bothered by the 18th time you asked me “Why?” and just telling you “Because I said so.”)
So I have touched upon it now a few times at the end of the preceding graphs: (I’m not going to dumb down that sentence for you, you are probably already smarter than daddy, so you know what I mean. Don’t pat yourself on the back though, it’s okay to be smarter than others but not to think you are.)
Yes, daddy was a person and maybe great at some things, but not always great and not great at everything.
When you came along into daddy’s life, it was a big change. Mommy and daddy did have a moment (a very happy one I clearly remember) when we decided we wanted to try to have you. So if you ever have ANY doubt that mommy and daddy love you, don’t. We do. You were absolutely 100% planned, expected, wanted and cherished.
The change in daddy’s life was one probably every parent undergoes; it’s a transition from being responsible for oneself to being charged with the care and wellbeing (and love, oh the overwhelming pressure of the love) of another person. Sure, daddy kinda took on the same responsibilities when he married mommy, but I think we both know mommy doesn’t really need daddy to take care of her. You are hopefully the same way now, if mommy had anything to do with it.
Daddy thought daddy-ing would come much easier to him. (Again, I will point out the love, there was always love and I never didn’t love you. I did the moment I found out you were even coming, and every step, every trepidatious little step of the way until you were here.) I was an uncle four times by auntie (yes Titi too was as crazy/saintly as Abuela) and daddy was great with your cousins. The trick was, whenever a baby cousin started acting up or getting whiny or crying, I could just give them back to auntie. I was not prepared for having to get through the hard parts.
I was not prepared for the overwhelming lack of sleep. (If you are reading this before you have kids, seriously, train, train yourself for the lack of sleep. Though, if mommy and daddy are around, we’ll be there—more than you want us to be—to help you out.) Really, the lack of sleep alone makes you not yourself. And, you so easily fall into bad or unexplainable behavior when you are not yourself or thinking clearly because you are just so. damn. tired.
There was really so much I was not prepared for:
The change in priorities, the change in the dynamic of my relationship with mommy, the change in responsibilities of the household, the need for social interaction for a feeling of normalcy or feeling like you are not just a feeding/changing/rocking machine, the complete loss of self and the slow process of finding your new identity.
You were two years old when I wrote this and I can think of dozens of instances when I lost my patience with you. When I was not the good daddy portrayed in the loving pictures you see. When I was (I’ll go ahead and use this word now that you are old enough to understand that there really is no other word for it) an asshole.
This in no way is, or ever was, a reflection of you as a child. You were a child. You were a wonderful child. Smart, determined, curious, boisterous, loud, suddenly shy, clingy, completely independent, sweet and thousands of other adjectives — and they are all good, even if they sound bad. You were you.
Daddy’s asshole moments (they were just moments, because I don’t want you to think that I was a complete asshole) were all daddy’s doing. I can’t explain or try to justify them. All I will say is that daddy felt absolutely terrible and horrible and beat himself up more than he probably needed to for even having those moments.
I will also not pretend that I didn’t ever lose my patience with you again. I know I have a lifetime of terrible tantrums, delightful disagreements and fond moments ahead where you’ll be completely embarrassed by my mere existence and—if you’re as dramatic as we expect—may even say you wish I were dead. I will do my best to take those in stride and know you love me. As much as I love you.
It is probably evolution at work; the fact that we don’t remember the first few years of our lives. If all goes according to science, you will never know anything but the lovable, happy and ever-doting father you’ve known since you were a very little girl. And this transitional (human) man I write of is just a fictional character daddy dreamed up in one of his stories.
