Last night my youngest turned towards me and said, “Dad, I don’t think I am going to do very well.” He was standing at the fridge, left hand pressed against the handle. His mouth cut a tight line across his face.
My mouth was moving before my conscious mind could process the words. I knew what he was talking about; knew how I felt about it; knew the space between both of our thoughts and reality. I said, “You’ll do well, so long as you put your heart and time and effort into it.”
Thinking back it was a nonsensical line. It was the hallmark moment fathers are supposed to have where a polite salve of words heals the fractures of growing up. The human body grows from fractures. Our bones are strengthened by microscopic breaks and the re-hardening of bone that quickly follows. Muscle grows and reforms out of the tears that come from stress and effort and from that separation strength is formed.
The mind works in the same fashion. Through pain and failure we better process the value of success. We learn dedication through distraction. We learn love through loss and sometimes envy. We learn the value of family through separation and even death. When he next spoke he asked, “Do you even know what I am talking about?”
“Your book report.” I lied.
“No, dad, I’m talking about this football season. I haven’t trained. I mean, I have trained. I’ve been doing track, but I am not football ready.”
I nodded, watching him walk over to sit beside me. He’s tall for his age, new emotions sprouting up in him alongside the tufts of leg hair that mark the start of early pubescence. He is already five feet and 110 lbs. He still carries a thin sheen of baby fat across his body and it bleeds into the features of his face making him look younger than his ten years. I say, “You’ve been working, but have you been doing everything you can to be as ready as you want?”
“No.”
I ask him why and the answer comes in slow nods. He is like me. He is afraid of success. He is afraid of potential and of realizing how good he is and just how good he isn’t. He rests a lot of faith on this one thing and if it doesn’t go as he wants he doesn’t know what comes next. He is a child and he is me and he is all of us who believe in a singular thing. I nod and I give him a hug and I say, “We go to work and we see what happens.”
It is what I tell myself every day.