Your mom and I are growing up. We’re keeping in touch. We’re being nice to each other. She told me you had a temperature today. Makes me nervous as hell every single time. I miss you and I love you. Can’t wait until Sunday.
Last night, your mom, you and I were alone in a room together. It was the first time in a couple years that this reality was made available and I’m left feeling very optimistic about the future. We got to talk about you, sincerely, and I got to apologize for all the hurtful things I’d said to her in the past. Don’t ever doubt the love your mom has for you either. When I picked you up yesterday, we drove in a different direction than we normally do and your mom hid a half block away to make sure you were okay. It might take her some time to really trust me. I don’t believe that’s fully warranted, but I understand for the sake of you. You really are her best friend and I don’t doubt her mothering skills for a second. I just hope we’ve finally come to an understanding that she doesn’t have to doubt mine as a father, either. I signed some piece of paper and she agreed to let me see you more throughout the week. We talked on a very human level and I am left incredibly optimistic about my time with you.
Enough about that. Let’s talk about you. Every time I have you, I give you a snack and we watch cartoons for about a half hour and then we take a nap. Yesterday, we napped a lot longer than we normally do and you woke me up by jumping on me. We watched a little bit of the superbowl. I don’t know why. Why not? You were completely uninterested but you really liked when the brightly-colored commercials came on. There was one strange ad that juxtaposed Saddam Hussein, Neil Armstrong and Spongebob Squarepants in the same sequence of shots. The world is weird, Evelyn.
I gave you a bath and you were really pissed off when you had to get out. You kept trying to swim in the bathtub so I couldn’t grip on to you. After a few tears and a fresh diaper, we just kind of hung out. You’re getting really close to your grandma Tracy.
I hope things are going to be okay.
1/30/10
Yesterday, I took you on our first little photo shoot together. I always shoot photos of you around the house but I’ve never taken you somewhere to do it. You weren’t into this empty field at all. We stayed there for about two minutes before I buckled you back in. It was just too cold.
I’m trying to correct the mistakes I made before you were born. I never anticipated my future or gave much thought to it because I was only responsible for myself. I don’t even know if that makes sense, but it’s the truth. Sometimes the truth doesn’t make sense. I dropped out of high school fully expecting to be a loser that couch-surfed from city-to-city with a girl he went to high school with until he died. When your mom got pregnant with you, those ideas were turned illusory. They were made completely intangible when we inevitably separated. Don’t worry about that, the day a week I get with you is more fulfilling than a lifetime of couch crashing. Having six days a week to waste gives me a lot of time to couch surf. It isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be. I’m always running from something, but I don’t ever quite know what.
The reason I talk about this is because I’ve hit a juncture in my professional life. I live in a town of less than 10,000 people and this makes my potential demographic nearly nonexistent. People don’t see the photos I shoot here as art or as beautiful. They see them as weird. This leaves me a very poor person financially. I feel like the only way I will ever be able to raise you the way I want to is if I break out of here. This creates a giant paradox, at least temporarily, because going places removes me further from the life you have here. I’m caught in between a rock and a hard place. I don’t believe I’m ever going to get more custodial rights to you being as broke and useless as I am to the world right now. I truly believe I have several talents that could be lucrative if I just put my mind and effort into it.
I wish I had the intensity and drive then that I do now. I wish I had just shut up and done something. I’ll never get that chance, though, so I am just trying to find a way to settle for second best with my life.
So what do I do? I look at you and I just feel like ever leaving is a terrible, pathetic idea. Then I check my pockets and realize they’re empty. I see people making careers in cities that are far less talented than I am. I see myself not doing anything ever here. I spend six days a week in a daze just trying to waste for Sunday to get here so I can be your dad for a few hours again. I don’t know what to do Evelyn. I don’t want you to ever think that I don’t love you enough. I just don’t know what I can do to make this right. There is a permanent wedge between you and I and I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t think there is a way to deal with that.
I just lack direction.
This is you and Grandma Weber. She is fighting a terminal cancer. You lit her up.
Hey girl. I am going to start keeping a log of all my events with you. We always have such a good time together and when I write about you, it makes me feel like you haven’t went back to your mom’s yet. Before I even start writing this, I want you to know that I love you and I hope I succeed enough that you never question that.
Today I took you to see Grandma Weber. She has cancer all over her body and is not in great shape. She hasn’t got to see you since you were a baby. The chemotherapy has prevented her from seeing you at all over the last few months in specific . It breaks my heart seeing her wither away like this. She’s had a long, full life full of great, beautiful things but it still sucks hard.
You really lit her up and made her happy. You’re usually extremely shy, but it only took you a few minutes (and a poptart) to open up to them. By the time it was ready to go, you were jumping around and getting into things you weren’t supposed to be getting into. Grandma couldn’t believe how beautiful you were. She kept telling me so. If she doesn’t have to start chemo again this week, I hope to take you back to visit again. She really is a wonderful woman and I hope she gets to stay on earth long enough for you to remember her. Wow, that hurt just to write.
Your grandpa Weber and aunt Cheyanne bought you some SpongeBob pajamas, a SpongeBob blanket and the fourth season of SpongeBob Squarepants on DVD. They had interrupted the nap we were taking, so you were pretty grumpy the entire time they were there and definitely didn’t show an immediate interest in any of the stuff they bought. Don’t worry, though. I doubt they took offense. =P By the time the night was over, you and that blanket had gone completely Linus. I could not separate you from it.
You’re also getting very close to Grandma Tracy. When she shows up in a room, you always give her a hug. She thinks you look identical to her and is completely proud of that fact. She boasts about it constantly. Tonight, the flash didn’t fire on my 7D and I picked up a frame that was a silhouette of your side profile. Your grandma just happened to have that exact photo of herself in 1967 or so and compared the two to everybody in the house. She kept saying, “I knew when I had a daughter that looked like my husband’s parents that I would have a grandchild that looked like me! I knew it!”
Time keeps flying by. You’re two years old, learning how to talk and poop on a toilet, and it all seems like it’s happened so fast. Every time I see you, you have a new set of things you’ve learned and I feel so robbed of time that I feel is rightfully mine to have. I want you to know that you never, ever leave my head and everything on this earth that I do is thought about through the scope of what would be best for you. Even if I only see you once a week, I am going to live my life in anticipation for that day.
You’re my girl. I love you. By the way, the overalls were not my idea. I went to the bathroom and when I came out, your grandma Tracy had put them on you. Promise.
