Today is Elijah’s 3rd birthday.  It will always be a bitter sweet day for me, since it was also three years ago today, that we lost you. As I write this, it is almost exactly 3 years since we spoke for the last time.  You were in Puerto Rico with dad, having the time of your life, but I could hear in your voice, how guilty you felt not being there for the birth of your second grandson. I told you it was OK!  We were fine. Elijah was happy and healthy with a near perfect Apgar score. I reminded you that you would be home before they were out of the Hospital, and that you would be here when we really needed you.  I never occurred to me that, that might be the last time we ever spoke.

When Elijah called for me this morning, I stopped myself at the door of his bedroom before entering. I took a deep breath and put on my best Fake It Till You Make It smile. I knew you would be so pissed at me, if I in anyway let the sorrow for your loss, impact your grandson’s birthday. You always put us first, and I have always tried to parent by that example. But I’m human, as were you (I’m sure you remember the dictionary incident), and I let my emotions get the better of me. As I was changing his diaper, there was a big smile on my face, but tears in my eyes. It wasn’t because I miss you (I do of course) but it was because I knew Elijah would never know you, at least not directly. I would never pick him up at your house and hear you swear to me that you didn’t give him any treats as I wiped the chocolate off his face. Seriously mom did you really think I would buy the story that his cousin Caroline smeared the chocolate on his face? She wasn’t even there 1/2 the times it happened with Josh!  He does know you by your picture and I was told how many times that day you looked at his.

Over the last three years he has grown so much. I wish I could still email you photos like this one,

though in my heart I know you have been with us this whole time.  He is an amazing kid, mom. He is so smart, and like his dad, a complete smart ass. He is a pistol, stubborn as a mule and has absolutely no fear.  Remind you of anyone? You always joked with me that you hoped I would be cursed with a child just like me. I was, and of course it is a blessing, not a curse, as I know you felt as well. We miss you mom.

Love,

Corey

Today I am feeling a bit lost and I realize I have lost sight of the forest through the trees of me. Too often I identify myself with the things I do, the metaphorical trees I plant. But it is all too easy to forget I am bigger than any one of these things. At various points in my life, I have been driven by different desires. Puffing up my already over inflated ego was certainly a long running theme. The ego thing still rears its ugly (but admittedly effective) head. And maybe that is healthy to a degree, in a take pride in your work kind of way. Today it is my kids more than anything else, that drive me. But I spend more time parenting employees than I do my own kids. Ultimately though, I know the hours and work I put in are for my family. My kids are my world, but I am also more than a parent. I have outside hopes and dreams, wants and desires. Like Stephanie, I have a need for creative expression. A need that sadly is rarely satisfied. My creative writing, with the exception of sporadic blog posts, has fallen away. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a poem or story.

I think for me, what drives me in large part is tied to how I define myself. I define myself as a parent first and foremost. I always knew I wanted kids, but I never knew how much it would change me. It became my center, but still not all of me. I have also always defined myself as an athlete and runner. For many years I wasn’t, but it never stopped me from thinking of myself in those terms. It was the realization that myself image was out of whack with my reality, that has pushed me to run again and consistently. I have been using Facebook and an iPhone app to help drive that change. I track all of my runs with Runmeter. Its Facebook integration helps me keep it real, so to speak. I’ve gotten to a respectable distance, now I just have to work on my speed. I want to think of myself as a runner, so by posting my running statistics in a mostly public fashion, I force myself to stick to it. Now there are plenty of other reasons I run. It is time to think, it feels great, reduces my occurrences of migraines, and it is doing wonders for my fitness. But the thing that drives me to run, is the desire for an internal and consistent self image. The goal being that eventually I will run regularly, not just because I want to think of myself as a runner, but because I truly am. I am starting to feel out of sorts when I don’t run, so hopefully I am moving in that direction.

I have thought of (and tried) ways I could do something similar with writing but I realized today, I no longer define myself as a writer. It seems odd to say out loud. I went a lot longer without running than I ever did without writing. But there it is. If I never publish “that novel”, I will be OK with that. Heck if I never write another short story or poem again, I would be OK with that as well. But if I no longer define myself as a writer, how can I address the desire for creative expression? I can’t paint or draw a straight line. I’m not much of a photographer. Yes, I could still write, and maybe someday I will take it up again, but in the mean time I have lost a large part of how I define myself in regards to creativity. But I need to remember, creativity goes beyond any single creative hobby or actions. I am creative in the ways I solve problems at work, parent my children, fix things around the house. But is that enough… I don’t know. There is something missing in regards to a creative outlet, and outside the context of writing, I’m not sure I know how to find it.

After the race another dear friend of mine asked me how it went. When I explained that I ran faster than I thought, she quipped that she would set a personal speed record just getting “the heck out” of her old high school. I have to admit, I understood the feeling. No matter where you were on the popularity spectrum, high school is painful. I think that is where most of us really learn to build walls, to varying degrees of height and depth. The walls are a survival mechanism for the countless intended and unintended hurts we all give to one another. But sometimes I wonder if those walls do more harm than good. Do we make ourselves into the proverbial bubble boy. When we do let things/people through, are we that much more raw/fresh/immune comprised….

I say high school is when we learn to build the walls but in truth it goes back much further. Partly for me, high school sticks out because I went to the same school from 5th trough 12th grade, so it is all kind of blurs together as one school/experience in my head. But I know it went back further. I have some clear memories of early childhood. One in particular I have never forgotten. I was 5 or 6 and some little kid wanted to play with a group of us. I don’t know why but I didn’t want him to play with us so I taunted this poor kid relentlessly until he went home crying. I never forgot the look on his face. I can also remember being on the other end of that type experience. Sadly, I am now starting to see it with my four year old; and it is HEARTBREAKING! Josh is a very social kid, and has a lot of friends, but even at 4 you start to see clicks form. There are two boys in particular in his class, who really don’t play with him, then a third who seems to go along with the other two when they are around. Josh must have told me 10 times last week how these three boys would not let him play Super Power Rangers with them on the playground at school. So my first thought was excellent, two of those boys aren’t particularly well behaved and well and I really don’t want you to know what Super Power Rangers are anyways, hence why the little TV we watch is PBS. Then I saw his hurt, and I just wanted to hold him and squeeze the pain way. But that hurt is nothing compared to what I have seen at Shul lately. There is this girl, she is a year older than Josh (he digs the older girls) so she is in kindergarten and is no longer in preschool with him, but he still sees her at Torah Tots on Shabbat, and Josh just LUV LUV LUVs her and she is just plain mean to him. He looks at her all googly eyes and tries to talk to her, and she just ignores him or worse, tells him to go away. IT IS PAINFUL. This is one of the most social, friendly and emotionally intelligent 4 year olds you will ever meet. I have no doubt Josh will do fine in life. He is everything I mentioned before, plus handsome, athletic, and has an amazing mind. I know in life he will have his heart broken and I have no doubt he will break his share of hearts, but it pains me to know the walls start forming so early in life.

Without going into too much detail, my wife and I have been dealing with some drama on her side of the family. This drama has created a great deal of stress in our lives. Sadly, part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people. One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to remember that conversation/Axiom.

I received a very nice comment in this thread, as well as several others off-blog. The other day someone posted a less flattering comment/question.

Corey it usually takes 2 to Tango and i’m not sayin’ your wife’s family isn’t part of it but family situations are always complicated and never 100% black and white this side right that side wrong or anything. not sayin’ 50-50 in your case who knows but your post implies you guys need no kinda fixin’ at all???

doesn’t count to say “part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people.” that’s like sayin’ “sorry if you were offended by what i said back there.” that’s no apology and no responsibility taken on yourself. it’s an artifice.

no cracks in that mirror? none? i’m just askin’ man.

I started to draft a biting response, drizzled with, OK soaked in, sarcasm. Then I realized it was a fair question based on the idiom that it Takes two to Tango. It is after all a well know expression that often rings true. Never one to shy away from self-reflection I decided to look at the question and answer it in this post. I will do my best to address this question without publicly airing more dirty laundry than we are comfortable. But before I go into what, if any responsibility we share, I’d like to examine the foundation of the question; does it Take two to Tango.

The idea is simple, conflict exists due to the action of two (or more) parties. Without both parties, there is no conflict. While on a purely reductionistic level, I suppose it is true, but does the implication of some blame on both sides necessarily hold up under scrutiny? I don’t think it does. To get a jump start on Godwin’s Law, for those who ended up in Concentration Camps based on their race or religion, are they truly contributing to the conflict? How about people who are beaten or killed for no other reason that their sexual orientation, do they contribute to the violence perpetrated against them? When a woman is raped, does she share in the blame? And yes, I know my sarcasm is creeping back in, and for the sake of clarity, these are rhetorical and intentionally hyperbolic questions meant to emphasize the absurdity of blaming a victim.

While the above examples were extreme (though sadly all too common), I have not necessarily found more “run of the mill” conflicts to be disproportionately of the shared blame variety. I have spent most of my adult career in Human Resources with a large role in employees relations, conflict resolution and investigations. Granted by the time it escalates to my level, it is usually beyond your minor personality type conflicts. While I have certainly encountered plenty of the “It takes two” kind, I would never go into an investigation with that assumption.

In fairness, the author of the comment did say “usually” and was specifically referring to familial relations. But does this match the reality of a world where domestic violence is commonplace. Where drug and alcohol abuse destroys lives. Where even a mother can murder her own children. Again, extreme, but hardly consistent with the notion that it is “never 100% black and white this side right that side wrong”

In regards to the comment “that’s no apology and no responsibility taken on yourself. it’s an artifice”, my post wasn’t meant to be an apology. Ultimately grown adults are responsible for their own behavior and actions. I won’t tolerate the excuse that “[insert name] made me do it” from my children, I’m certainly not going to accept it from supposed adults. You can’t control other people’s behavior, only how you react to it and if you choose to allow it in your life. That was what I was taking ownership of.

Tensions between me and Melissa’s family have been there since the beginning of our relationship and I am willing to bare my share of that responsibility. I know that that when I am uncomfortable I tend to shut down and I can be perceived as cold and unfriendly. But there was an incident about 18 months ago, for which I can honestly say I take no blame. Someone put their hands on me inappropriately and aggressively, after which we decided this person would no longer be allowed around our children without either Melissa or I present. This restriction has led to the ongoing drama I alluded to in the earlier post. Melissa’s family has reacted to our choice for our children with ongoing unhealthy and destructive behavior towards us. We realize we can’t change their behavior nor can we fix them.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a quick post on healing . Without going into too much detail, my wife and I have been dealing with some drama on her side of the family. This drama has created a great deal of stress in our lives. Sadly, part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people. One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to remember that conversation/Axiom

About 20 months ago, I experienced some emotional extremes. We suddenly and unexpectedly lost my mother the day Elijah was born.  I was up, I was down, I was sleep deprived and generally a mess. One of the things that really struck me at the time, and I had nearly forgotten about, was how everything tasted funny (sort of).  Nothing tasted different per se, at least not in an identifiable or quantifiable way. It was as if everything was flavored with something subtle and ineffable. That “flavoring”, for lack of a better term” did not play well with coffee. Certain things, coffee in particular, just tasted wrong.  I don’t recall when things started tasting ”right” again, but eventually they did.

I’m curious if anyone else has had a similar experience – powerful emotions altering your tastes in someway. Did you start hating something you loved, or love something you hated? Did it last?