I am away from home this week working in the town of McAlester, OK.
I generally dislike being away from my home unless the place I am visiting is more interesting/prettier/has nicer creature comforts than my home. Unfortunately for myself and the good people of this town, McAlester meets none of these criteria.
It is a hilly, green little town that as nearly as I can tell bares no real distinction from many other of the hilly, green little towns in Eastern, OK. It has taken me two trips before I have found a coffee shop and I am sad to say that after the excitement of my discovery had worn off, the lingering taste of their mediocre coffee had not. I know that my wife hates it when I bash Oklahoma (see her previous blog at oddholler.blogspot.com) but she has never had to spend any time in McAlester. If it weren't for my job, I probably would have never had to spend any time here, either.
When I am working out of town, I don't have much choice but to eat at a restaurant for every meal. For me, this is no real torture. I love to eat "out". However, I do prefer lunches on these business trips because I can go alone. Dinners are often times a forced affair with the other members of the "team" where everyone nervously pretends to like and be interested in everyone else's particular challenges that they may have met during the day.
This is at best awkward and at worst unmanageable. During these dinners I like to look at my phone a lot and pretend that I am reading extremely important e-mails that must be acted upon immediately.
But with lunch I can take my time, read the newspaper, and not have to expend the energy to pretend that I am interested in some near-stranger's life (not that strangers are incapable of being interesting, but in the case of my company, strange does not typically translate to surprisingly knowledgeable on the subject of mid-century modernism. It usually translates to, surprisingly knowledgeable on the topic of hunting down, assassinating, and stuffing animals for home display).
Today's lunch was fantastic. I found a local little Mexican place that was clean, efficient, and whose offerings were delicious. I got to read the paper and be left in peace to decompress following the crucible that had become my morning.
Sitting behind me were some teenagers (at least I think they were, that is something that is becoming more and more difficult for me to discern as I hurtle towards my forties) that were being about as obnoxious as you would think teenagers would be - nothing shocking there. In fact, I became more and more amazed as I continued to eat ( I refuse to say, "as I continued to lunch" - that is a ridiculous use of that particular noun as a verb and it must stop) that the group of braying asses had ceased to upset the calming nature of my meal.
What had changed? Even a year ago, I probably would have gotten up and moved to a quieter spot in the restaurant or worse, hated myself for not doing so. Why was this not pissing me off? Had I become so compassionately zen-like that even small town tweens couldn't rattle me?
Kind of.
It dawned on me seconds later. My metamorphosis was not gained by some new age mountain top yoga retreat, nor was it forged by some unseen hand of the Almighty. My peace came from within - it was a sense of knowing. It was an amazing experience and one that filled me with the overwhelming reassurance that nothing so small would ever bother me again. I laughed out loud.
The difference is that I now have a child. And once you go through the experiences that my new family has shared with each other over the last four and a half months, nothing so insignificant as annoying teenagers will ever come close to rattling your cage.
Eating lunch next to small town kids in a Mexican restaurant is infinitely easier than eating lunch with an infant. Cari and I often laugh about having to scarf our food down as fast as possible because we can see that Grey has just about had enough of sitting in his infant carrier staring at ceiling fans. It's like running some kind of bizarre epicurean race or training to become a competitive eater.
Most of the time we can't even eat together. One of us eats while the other one patiently parades our beautiful boy through the restaurant swinging him about in some form of "Superman" flying pose that all of the sudden is the only way that he will be held without crying.
As I was laughing about the ridiculousness that has become our everyday life I started thinking about all of the photos I see of famous people and their children out on the town.
You know, the Pinkett-Smith's and the Jolie-Pitt's of the world carrying on with their-well appointed brood looking slightly haggard by the efforts of parenting which somehow tends to make them even more alluring.
There are countless pictures of these families swashbuckling their way through foreign airports (presumably after they have traveled to some underprivileged nation and immunized all of their children, rebuilt all of their roads, and provided a sustainable Eco-grid that will forever power their village enabling them to no longer be at the mercy of corrupt petroleum producers) looking like they just stepped out of some place in Prospect Heights where the Kings of Leon ripped through a 2 hour set of 70's Glam Band covers in a bar that only existed for one day.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that is true, then some of those words could be used to form a sentence that is a complete lie. Trust me, nobody that manages six kids on a full time basis could look that good without a stylist and a team of Au pairs hovering in the wings.
If anyone in the world thinks that this is what having children is like, please do not procreate until you and your wife have several million dollar picture deals in your portfolio.
I don't even shower on the weekends. There is no time and there is no point. Reading books (other than infant-related) has become a thing of the past. My bicycle's tires have become under-inflated from lack of use and a layer of fine dust covers my new record player that Cari got me for Christmas. I don't do a very good job taking care of the lawn anymore because I feel guilty that Cari takes care of Grey all day during the week and I want to help her on the weekends (plus it is God awful hot - jeez, it's not like I didn't know that when I moved back). I have a particularly difficult time keeping up with my laundry and I will admit I put forth minimum effort on home projects now.
But...my son is happy.
In fact he is more than happy - he is at ease with the world. Sure, he gets upset sometimes, but you can tell it is out of frustration, not fear. My wife and I have somehow been able to make him feel safe, cared for, and loved. And that is something that I didn't know I was capable of doing before he came along. It is also something that is, and I suspect always will be, a full-time job. Which is fine by me.
I've got nothing better to do.
