Can you prepare for a decidedly indulgent weekend by bulking up on decadence? By being in solid physical shape? Or does debauchery take less of a toll on those who have less to lose? How much is too much to lose?
How do we prepare, then, for change? How does a man prepare for his daughter's departure into adulthood?
Two of my guy friends have daughters now who are the same age I was when I went off to college. Seeing these men struggle with this, the letting go, makes my head spin.
My grandfather's third wife died the week before I was scheduled to leave for college, a time zone away. So my mom stayed behind while Dad drove me off to my freshman year. It was just us – and everything imaginable shoehorned into that 1978 Chevy Impala – on that 8-hour trip. Thank God it was a time before PCs, laptop or otherwise, and before microwaves were small enough to fit in dorm rooms.
I'm sure the drive felt to me like any other drive across Nebraska at age 17: Desolate and predictable and conducive to a good, long brain massage. I was thrilled to be leaving so much behind, and thrilled to be entrusted with so much uncertainty.
Did Dad and I talk along the way? I can't imagine that we did. What would we have said? We couldn't exactly talk about the weather, because it was laid out there in front of us in a thousand miles of horizon. Did we talk about money? Yeah, right. I'm sure it was a very, very silent trip.
A trip punctuated, after about six hours, by the mountains in the distance, and the thrill of knowing that after a lifetime of dreaming it, I'd finally BE in Colorado.
We found the dorm and did all that check in stuff and unloaded the car and I shooed Dad away. I'm sure I hopped on my bike and rode around campus and around town and was spared the altitude sickness that badgers me as an adult. I found the convenience store across the street from the dorm and had my first-ever bagel with cream cheese and sprouts and felt scared and victorious at the same time.
I never stopped to think about what that drive home must have been like for my dad.
2 comments:
maybe some of it is natural, and some guys definitely reinforce the stereotype, but it seems like in general, as a societal thing, men are taught to not show emotions - that it's a sign of weakness. maybe part of it is generational too. our dads grew up in a different world. i never thought much about how my own dad felt either. i never really got any signs that he was upset, but some things must have gotten to him. he probably just let it out in private. maybe your dad sobbed all the way home.
You simply embrace your fear, and make it your own. As the POWs in Vietnam used to say: "You learn to love the rope."
Dads are generally a pretty stoic bunch, in my experience. I imagine my dad stood in the doorway of my empty bedroom, stared into the shadows for a bit ... and then went and puttered in his basement workshop for several hours.
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