6:36 am. I have been lying in bad awake for an hour or more. At first I tried to get back to sleep, and Greg kept snoring. Then Ian stirred a bit and wouldn’t resettle. By the time he fell still, I was awake, thinkinkngthinkingthinking, and feeling. I came to some realizations that felt important. I feel like I’ve just arrived from a journey so profound that I must write it down, but now that I am here in front of the machine, alone for once, I can’t really begin.

     I started off getting a little scared about my age. Last night on the phone I overheard Greg laughingly say to his brother that he has a “50 year old father”. He meant “a 50 year old new father. I guess that struck some cord in me. It isn’t as though I hadn’t realized Greg’s age, it’s just that I have always lived the way I wanted to despite my fears and the fears of my parents. Age didn’t really matter unless you let it. Suddenly I had thoughts like, “we are old enough to be grandparents” and I started to freak out about how if we are lucky and get to live really long lives, then we were in the middle right now. I am about to turn 45 in 2 days. Maybe that is what this is all about. Twice 45 is 90. I’ve been saying since I was 12 that I intend to live to 113, but statistically I’ll be really lucky to make it to 90. So chances are that I am at the halfway point or past it. I thought of us dying and leaving Ian alone in the world, and looking at his perfect little face snuggled next to me, it almost broke me heart. Of course, I must assume that he will grow independent and strong and be surrounded by loving friends. He also has quite a lot of family, especially on Greg’s side. I have to believe that he will be fine. I started thinking we should have another baby (I pictured a daughter). Then I got scared that we’d struggle financially. Things are hard enough as they are. Then I thought who cares? All you need is love, and anyways, hadn’t I always pulled something off jobwise? Why would my ability to do that suddenly vanish on my 45^th birthday? It struck me that having a child at my age was the ultimate act of hope. I know, I know, having a child at any age is. But at middle age, you are old enough to no know how hard things can be.

     The other thing that hit me, and I’m not really sure I could explain how I came to this, was that I realized that I have been carrying my dad’s fears and insecurities around all my life. I’ve been wearing them like they were my own. I sucked them in and have let them eat at me all this time, thinking they were mine, and wondering how they got there. It is one of the reasons I’ve lived so far away for so long. I can lay them to rest when I am far away, but if I stay here too long they get reactivated and start running me again. I get depressed and eat a bunch of junk and need two weeks to detox mentally, physically, and emotionally when I get back to wherever I am living.

     The thing I now see is that I don’t think I’m a looser, but I am suddenly pretty sure that my dad secretly thinks he is. I don’t care what people think about which colleges I attended, but I am pretty sure dad thinks I should. I like my hair long and could give two craps about what is considered appropriate for someone my age, but I am pretty sure dad has ideas about that, etc. It amazes me that something so simple can feel so deeply important. I mean, I realize we all have our issues, and my deep revelations are no more profound that anyone else’s. It’s just that it blows me away to realize the source of a whole host of struggles I’ve had. It’s incredibly freeing, or at least it will be once I manage to get a handle on how to deal with the information!

     P.S. Oh boy, I feel like I just “outed” dad.