I don’t mean to be depressing. But you know when you enter an annual recurring event in your calendar and the calendar asks you when the event ends? Well, I like to think about that whenever I enter birthdays.

In physics there are the related concepts of potential and kinetic energy. Potential energy is all of the latent energy that is stored inside of a thing waiting to do something. Kinetic energy is the energy a thing has when it’s in motion. You increase an egg’s potential energy as you carry it to the top of a building. And when you drop it from the roof, the potential energy in it is gradually converted into kinetic energy as it accelerates towards the earth. The potential energy is finally spent when it hits the ground and explodes.

As a father, I can sympathize with the egg.

Every new day is full of potential. But some days I get out of bed and the kids go mad and I go mad and we start falling immediately. On those days I feel that my relationship with them is not unlike Gandalf’s relationship with the Balrog. We fall together, struggling. And as we fall, I can see blurry visions of missed opportunities whoosh past, alternate paths we could take and explore if we could just float for a little while. But on those days we have nothing but fathomless black chaos beneath us.

Life is like that, too, it seems. Full of potential and slow-moving when we are born, we gain momentum as we age and grow and learn. That momentum is useful. But it also prevents us from changing course as quickly as we’d like. And we find our potential shrinking as we plummet through life towards the inevitable.

Lately I’ve started to accept the idea that a man can’t be a person’s father and their friend at the same time. At least, not while that person is a child. Of course one can be friendly—but that’s not the same thing at all. What a child wants and what a child needs are very often not the same thing. Friends don’t send friends to their rooms when they misbehave. Maybe true friendship can’t come until the child can stand on his own, when the father accepts the child as a man and the child realizes the father is only a man.

It’s so much more important to be their father. But I’d like to be my children’s friend one day, to be resurrected on the mountain as John the White. In a world of potential, it’s something to hope for.

Comments

1. Sylvia on 2008-02-04 15:19:47 wrote: I’m laughing through tears here! Great post! You have it right, John. Keep up the good work. You are making good people out of your children, people who will want to be not only your friend forever, but also the example they go by when they are parents–something that will happen way too soon on your way to the ground! :)

2. Norby on 2008-02-04 22:59:17 wrote: I think you wrapped it up quite nicely there, John. Glad I’m not the only dad that wakes up looking forward to the end of the day already from time to time. Reminds me of the XTC lyrics: “We could have been the best of friends, and not merely related.” -//

3. Peter on 2008-02-05 13:28:42 wrote: Very accurate observation on friend vs. daddy. I think that if you concentrate on being a father now, you’ll have a better chance of being a friend and a father later. And yeah, I feel like that more than I’d like. Not an excessive amount, but more than I would like. Too many missed opportunities and disappointed looks even for the small amount that they are.

4. s’mee on 2008-02-05 23:46:03 wrote: as a mom at the end of her ‘career’, let me just say that they actually do come back and say “thanks for being so hard on me” …really! All three boys have, and in writing! Still waiting for the girls, but hey, they haven’t gotten married yet, so maybe then. Good luck and 37,000pts for being the DAD!

5. s’mee on 2008-02-05 23:47:02 wrote: oh! p.s. Hey John, I’m hosting a SoCAL Blogger meet-n-eat, if you are interested, details at knotinthestring.blogspot.com