The Playpen

Morning is the time of day I dread the most. I awaken, the house hushed and grey, and tiptoe past my daughter’s room into the kitchen where I quietly prepare my coffee. Usually, while it’s brewing, I stare out the window and slowly take in the sleeping neighborhood. There is no movement and, as the clock on the bookcase quietly ticks away, I find myself deep in thought and not quite ready to clear the haze from my mind. I take my coffee outside and sit down on the grey stone planter in front. From there I can see the entire street in its silent, slumbering splendor. I see the wispy ashen clouds high in the sky, lit from underneath with the faint crimson-purple light of a sun that has not yet emerged from the mountains in the east. I hear the hollow, sorrowful song of a lone Mourning Dove far off in the distance, as if singing some lonely prayer to no one in particular. I smell the fresh, earthy moisture of the morning fog as it dampens the tree trunks and grass around me. I see my own breath as I exhale into my mug while sipping its contents.

In the morning I am naked. Exposed without the cover of traffic, spreadsheets, telephones and distraction. I am alone. I am completely alone with my own thoughts and, in the deathly-still moments before sunrise, I can hear them. In the morning, I am not funny. I am not smart. I am not doing well at much of anything.

In the morning I am a failure.

I’ve given up trying to control them. Worry, Doubt and Shame, the three demons that taunt me incessantly, know me too well. They know exactly where the gap in the armor of my mind can be found, and attack it constantly by replaying events in my life of which I am not proud, whispering ominous what ifs and chipping away at my belief in myself. They remind me of financial concerns and mock my failed attempts to overcome them, and spend most of their time relentlessly reminding me that “I should have.” They paint scary, threatening pictures of my life and the lives of my family and show them to me, pointing out all the darker areas while explaining how they are representative of things that will go wrong in our future and how the common subject in each of the paintings around which the dark areas are centered is me. Then they ask sarcastically about my plans for the future and laugh scathingly at my responses. Those three demons, each and every morning in silence, with no one to bear witness, torture me to the breaking point until they ultimately succeed at their goal of convincing me that I am simply…not…good enough.

This morning as I was about to succumb to them once again, to give up and let them have their way with me, I heart a faint tapping at the front door. I started, then rose from my stone wall and turned to go back inside. My daughter was standing just inside the door, her face puffy and flushed from having just awaken from a long night’s sleep. She was staring up at me through the glass with half-open eyes, clutching the pink stuffed unicorn I had grabbed off the shelf for her the night before on a quick trip to the drugstore for shaving cream. I opened the door and stepped quietly inside, closed it slowly and crouched down in front of her, placing my hands gently on her shoulders.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I said with a forced smile, the memory of my conversation with the demons still very fresh in my mind. “Is everything OK?”

She looked at me for a moment then fell into my arms, hugging me tightly and burying her face in my shoulder. Although I was concerned that something was wrong, it felt good and we lingered there in silence. I felt her tiny hand making little circles lazily on my back I listened to the sound of her breathing for a few minutes more. Finally, I tried again.

“Sweetie? Are you all right?”

She pushed away from me and looked into my eyes, thinking for a bit before finally whispering, “You’re the best daddy in the whole world.”

Worry, Doubt and Shame vanished. I pulled her back into my arms and smiled with the kind of happiness in my heart that cannot be planned, bought or controlled. As I held her, not caring that her tousled hair was tickling my cheek, I looked out the door and saw the first rays of brilliant orange sunlight pouring through the dew-sparkled branches of the trees and heard the birds beginning to sing. That little girl, the one whose well-being and future I have been carrying gingerly on my back since the very first day, thought enough of me as a father to say that, and that two or three minutes by the front door in the morning convinced me that I was getting it right. In fact, it convinced me that I might be doing the very hardest thing in the world right, and there must be something of value in that.

Tomorrow the demons will be back, and they will say and do what they always have. But tomorrow I won’t listen. My daughter thinks I’m the best dad in the whole world and, as of right now, I’m fairly certain that’s enough.

-Matt

1. Kori Says:
   September 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

   If that isn’t enough, I don’t know what is.
   Kori´s last blog ..Weekend Recap, Such as it is

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2. Barbara Says:
   September 15th, 2009 at 8:37 pm

   Works for me. Great message, Matt.
   Barbara´s last blog ..Progression to Bipedal Locomotion

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