Do not be afraid

In which Dad knocks on metaphorical and physical doors

January came and went this year in what felt like a week. This used to be my month of madness, when I would shave my head or stay up very late into the night reading or writing. One year, I spent it in the garage of our house in Milton Keynes, on the rowing machine, listening to the audiobook of War and Peace. There's always Yoko's birthday as well, halfway through the month, which seems to come quickly after Christmas and which I've always felt a kind of Protestant guilt about, thinking of my father and his expressions of love through gift giving, that I've never managed to live up to, nor which seem to have the effect I expect.

This year, the kids are older, and finally all teenagers. "Really teenagers," I've been saying to people, "and I don't mean that in a bad way," like I don't want to be perceived as complaining, because I'm not complaining. I remember being a teenager, I remember my parents or girlfriend asking me what's wrong and being physically unable to articulate my feelings and being told I was being difficult. Now, standing on the outside of this experience, I can feel the panic of being locked out of a house that you used to enter at will, and the new experience of needing to knock on the door and be let in, to be invited in.

I read or heard someone say that you are only as happy as your most unhappy child and I've felt the truth of this, as the Pihlajas of Harborne begin to peel off. The children are all, one by one, lining up, perching on the edge of the nest, hesitantly making moves like they will jump, that they are ready to take flight themselves. University offers begin to come in and as Dad, you try to be Dad, to say and do the sorts of things that Dads do without letting on, without giving away too much into your world, without saying to them, "This is a wonderful and terrifying experience. You were a baby just last week, it seems, that is how I feel, please be patient with me."

It is not a straightforward endeavour. This morning, Dad woke up and knocked on doors to make sure everyone was headed in the right direction, feeling the same pit in his stomach that he does every day, that today there will be another problem, and there will be nothing he can do. That the door will be locked and no one will answer, and he will stand there as Dad, trying to find the right words, like there's some password, there's something exactly right to say. Dad is here, he's at the door. What should he do. Should he keep knocking. Should he sit outside and wait to be let in. Should he leave and come back later. He'll do whatever he needs to do, if he can figure it out, if he can find, somewhere, the right words.