Stumbling stone
I speak to you with my heart in my hand. Assume that I am a present father and a loving husband, fundamentally.
This is the reality I want to hear.
The following discourse takes place in my head, which is full of positivity, but also negativity and selfishness.
I know this, and I'm working on it.
I have an amazing one-year-old daughter and have been married to my lovely wife for eight years. In my life, even in my marriage, I have never gone through a strange period like the one I have experienced in the last year.
A strange period, yes, not exactly in a positive sense: I have had episodes where my life seemed to take its own path, and I stubbornly refused to change.
In the last months of my wife's pregnancy - spring 2023 - I insisted on wanting to buy a new electric guitar. I made the purchase while she was in the delivery room, exhausted by a situation that did not seem to be resolving.
The doctors "allowed" me a half-hour break to get some fresh air, and what did I do? Pizza and... a guitar, purchased online, of course.
What a fool.
Let's be clear, I'm not disappointed with the purchase... But just a few hours later (after the unexpected C-section) my daughter would be in my arms. And I was thinking about making music.
There are many things I didn't realize until these last few months, when my daughter became more "independent" after starting daycare (she goes to sleep early on her own and sleeps through the night) and my evening leisure time increased dramatically.
For example, I realized I have an addiction, almost a "gambling addiction" to recording music on the PC. I've reached the point of recording at least one song almost every evening of the week, immersed in my own head and my screen. The result was a whole website full of fresh tunes, and a total alienation.
Until... the unexpected happens. It seems my wife is not having her periods regularly.
Which is quite strange, and since our last -ehm- intercourse was a few weeks ago... Could it be that...?
Doubts come quickly. At first, I don't think about it for at least two days, it must be the stress from her new job.
But then the images and awareness of my own actions take over, becoming a nagging thought that drills into my head every hour, giving you a little respite only when you're immersed in something that doesn't make you think - no, not music this time, but rather my work.
And I see myself, almost in the third person, in front of my PC, neglecting the house, the family, the role I should have but which I immediately abandoned as soon as I put my daughter to bed.
How do I do it? Two children? Or worse, three if they're twins? And what will the others think?
"We didn't expect it", but how didn't you expect it? Children are not made "by mistake", two consenting adults usually know that if they do certain things... And the precautions? And whose fault is it? Ah, the blame...
After the overthinking, the awareness of living in a kind of precariousness returns.
This time, I don't know how it's going to go. Maybe it's the stress playing tricks on my wife. Or maybe the family will expand within a year, perhaps. Because you never really know how these things go...
Yet I have more than one awareness.
As a Christian, that God does not allow crosses greater than those I can bear, and that in any case, this thing of putting me in a tight spot, He has done it like a true gentleman, placing a daughter on one side and, when I thought I could escape, this precariousness on the other. It reminds me of the story of Jacob.
And then, as a young has-been and an amateur adult, I am aware of the mistakes I have already made. How much I have evaded my wife's attention, how much I have underestimated my presence with my daughter...
And how many arguments, and how much it has already hurt me to realize it in these past months...
How will it end? We'll only find out by living it.