Strangers?

I’ve started to realize that I tend to write late at night when I can sleep, when my mind is racing or like tonight, my back is bothering me and I’m tired of rolling around trying to get comfortable.  Tonight is both though, at one point when I got comfortable with a pillow between my knees taking the pressure off my lower back I started thinking back on today and began to think, which lead to over thinking, which lead to worrying.  Here is the dilemma at hand; my son and I are basically strangers to one another.

I’m unfamiliar with what makes him tick beyond what he shows when he is here, and that is mostly consumed with playing with his sisters, his trucks and wanting to always have what he wants to watch on TV, and I’m not far from just a guy he calls “Daddy” and he sees every couple of weeks for a few days.  He doesn’t know what I do, he doesn’t know what its like to sit and watch a ball game with me, beyond UK he isn’t aware of who my favorite teams are. (Cincinnati Reds and Bengals for those keeping score at home)  Its honestly a bit disturbing when I sat down and started thinking of all this.  It causes me to feel like I’ve let him down, and let myself down.  That I’ve broken promises that I made to myself (another post for another time), which just leads to more questions, and more fears and doubts.  He went nearly 10 months of his life without truly knowing me as his father, and still yet rarely gets to know what it feels like to have me around.  Is that helpful or hurtful for him?  Does he know how much I love him and cherish him?  or will he find reasons to resent me when he gets older?  Just some of the thoughts and questions swimming in my mind when it comes to my son.  He is worth every second I get to have him, but it is becoming more and more of an internal struggle.  I only hope I always do right by him.

Making an impact

Every other weekend, I get my son for 48 hours.  Thursday evening to Saturday evening.  A small window to make any sort of impact or influence on his young life.  This weekend was another one of those weekends, and it just seems like it all is weighing down on me more.  I’ve slowly gotten accustomed to him growing up a lot on me in the 12 days between his visits with me, but I can’t stand not knowing my son.  I realized Friday, I didn’t even know what his favorite cartoons were.  I listened to him sing the entire theme song to a show on the Disney Channel, and it just registered with me.  Something so simple was able to hit me like a brick wall.

There are so many things involved in his life I don’t have any influence on, and you can tell he has a lack of male influence.  It eats at me because I feel like I fail him in ways or I let him down.  Its hard, wanting to give your son the world, allow him to have everything he wants and experience anything and everything he can, and that be limited by courts, rules, his mother, time limits.

It dawned on me today, that Abby is almost the age Canaan was when i finally started getting visitation.  I look at her, and see all the things she’s experienced, seen how she’s grown and how she looks at the world with her beautiful wondering eyes, taking in everything.  Canaan used to be that way, but it seems now, that excitement isn’t there, and it makes me wonder about his life, and what goes on.  I would never trade my son, or any of my kids for anything in the world, they’re my heart and my purpose in life.  I just wish I felt like I had more of an impact on his.  I just miss him, and I’ll miss him everyday for the next 12, looking forward to when I can pick him up again, and then dreading when I have to take him back, but that’s the cycle we’re in right now, and I’m just grateful I have him and am able to have the time I do.