And then there are the days....

And then there are the days you are painfully aware of just how shitty a parent you’ve been. Days when every right thing you’ve ever done appears meaningless and voided in the glare of your failure. Your failure of patience. Your failure to sympathize. Your utter lack of empathy. Your failure to stand firm. Your failure to be a good role model. Your failure to hold it together as you fail to correct instead of chastise. Your failure to be the adult. Your failure to treat your child like the gift he is. And again your failure to correct instead of chastise. And when the days run consecutively, your failure to not fail again. And you hate yourself for it. And then you hate yourself for hating yourself. And after you’ve made it right and he finally falls asleep in your crook while saying, “I love you, Daddy,” you hate yourself.

And when you retire to the porch with your drink and your cigar and your exhaustion hanging on you like an appendage, you hate yourself more. Until your self-loathing is the only thing that makes you feel better.

And you listen to the soft rain falling on all sides of you; and you wish it could reduce you to one of the distant rivulets you see washing to the gutter at the end of your street.

And all of this because you love your Boy more than anything there ever was.

And so you finish your drink and your cigar. You go inside. Turn out the lights. You lie down next to him. Put your left hand on his left shoulder blade. You measure time by the sound of his breathing. The faint beat of his heart against your palm.

The rain taps forgiveness at your window. Self-loathing rinses away. Reveals the promise of tomorrow. And a second chance.