It's a sad, familiar love story is what it is

Just getting ready to head out for an evening monkeycage shift, which means I’m fried by the day and baked in anticipation, while Liv is puttering at the nook and Tricia, home early from work with a nagging cough, is sitting on the couch reading Positive Discipline for your Preschooler: A to Z.

“You should read this and then we should talk about it.”

“That sounds especially serious. Are we going to talk about all the things I’ve been doing wrong?”

“They’re things I’ve been doing wrong, too.”

And she reads off a few. Time outs aren’t effective when used as punishment (I told Liv that very day that time-outs were supposed to be hard because they are punishment). Us I statements (an ex flogged that into me, but I advocate it better than practice it). Walk away from whining when you have to (I suck at this).

As she talks, I almost crumble. Because it is so hard already. I’m convinced of my incompetence without good reasons, much less with good ones. Liv and I have been struggling lately. Too much sharp edge from me, too many histrionics from her. And I see myself reinforcing behavior and outlooks that I still find crippling in myself.

And it had been a hard day. Tears. Brattiness. Selfishness. Take your pick as to wich one of us I’m describing.

“I don’t think I can do this right now. I don’t think I can handle this.”

She’s silent, because what can you really say in response to that?

“I’m already afraid that I’m a bad daddy. Right now, before I leave for work, I just want to watch her play and love her.”

Which I do, while the frustrated tears remain unwilled, in a hard ball, just behind my nose, and fear makes my icy belly rumble.

It’s a new religion, this parenting business, and for the first time in my life I’m a self-immolating charismatic. But only in my head.

Outside I’m a neurotic and depressive stay-at-home-daddy with a good heart and a three-meter deficit of patience. Conflicted and self-abusive as a Catholic with a hard-on, though hopefully more noble.

No, that’s literary bullshit. I said it because I had to, because it popped into my head and the fine print on the poetic license in my wallet said I had to run with it.

What I am is just another guy that loves a girl he believes he can never do right by. Ever.

Doomed.