Untying the Knot: Fatherhood, Fear, and Finding Strength.

It has been a while since I last wrote in this blog, and a lot has happened. I think I finally have my medication mostly figured out, and I’m happy with where it is right now.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on something deeply personal—working with that little boy inside of me, trying to help him untie the knot that makes him feel like he has to succeed or prove himself to make his parents proud. Now that my father has passed, I suppose that weight falls entirely on my mother. But I’ve been making a conscious effort to shift my focus toward doing things that will make my own children proud. Whether he likes it or not, that little boy inside me is now a father to two little boys who look up to him. If I don’t loosen that knot, I risk passing down my own childhood struggles and trauma to them. If you were to ask me how it’s going, I’d say it’s somewhere in the middle. I struggle at times, but at other times, I think I’m making progress. And really, that’s all I can ask of myself—to just do better than I did yesterday.

Now comes the second part of this, which is difficult to write without getting emotional. My youngest son has a heart condition, and we are very close to scheduling the surgery that should correct it. His doctors and surgeons are optimistic about the outcome, and in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t the worst heart condition a person could have. But none of that makes it any less terrifying for me as a father.

I grew up in a household where men had to be strong, and I feel that same pressure now. I know my wife is terrified—she tells me all the time—and I don’t feel like I can add my own fears to her burden. I don’t think I can let my oldest son see how scared his father is. And the hardest part is knowing that if something goes wrong, I don’t know if I can hold my family together. My whole life, I’ve felt like I was holding everything together by my fingertips, constantly reassuring everyone that things would be okay—even when I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. But this… this feels like too much for my grip to handle.

Maybe writing this all down is my way of convincing myself that acknowledging my fears is the first step toward managing them. So here it is, in black and white—I’m scared.