About three weeks ago, I completed my first half-marathon. I remember the moment I signed up for the Colfax race. It was in October, and I had been suffering from crippling insomnia for a couple of weeks. I was sitting in a bar on a Monday night (my night off from stay-at-home parenting), and I decided that I needed a goal to get back into exercising regularly. It worked, and though I still struggle with the anxiety and insomnia (on occasion), working toward that goal had a huge impact on me getting my life under control.
I loved running that race, and it went even better than I expected -- I finished in less than two hours, a result that I’m pretty proud of. The accomplishment has even led me to consider running a full marathon -- I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it. While I am proud of the work I put into training for the half, I still feel like I cut some corners. In terms of diet and exercise, I feel like I did the minimum I could do to still be successful with my goal. If I train for a full marathon, I’m thinking I won’t be able to cut so many corners -- there’s too much work involved.
Becoming a father has led me to question my predilection for cutting corners, because I’ve realized that it’s really hard to do that as a parent. You are responsible for the health, safety and happiness of another human being. If you really accept the weight of that responsibility, then you tend to go overboard. You feel both more anxious and more happy. You keep the house cleaner. You try to eat better. You drink less alcohol. You get less vocal with your road rage. You reflect on everything that has made you who you are up until that moment that you held your baby for the first time.
Well, at least you try. And sometimes, because of the stress of parenting and, really, the stress of life, you become the worst version of yourself.
I was in Target with my wife and daughter last week. We were all exhausted. None of us had been sleeping well, Eleanor was cutting her first two teeth, and I hate shopping in grocery stores. We had finished with our list, and I was pushing the cart while Katie carried Eleanor. Some dude was walking into the store as I was heading to the cash register. He was staring at his phone, walking slow, so I decided to push my cart quickly in front of him and get through the line and out of the store.
This inconsiderate man decided to pause his phone staring to say to me, “Excuse you,” as if we were in elementary school. I threw an expletive at him over my shoulder as I kept moving, because his passive aggressive comment made me so angry that I responded instead of just walking away. He decided to follow my family to the register and to confront me. I’m not sure what he had in mind, or what he expected to accomplish, but my wife disarmed him with some sort of diplomatic comment and he walked away.
Katie was terrified, and I felt horrible. I wasn’t acting like a Christian with my behavior, and my actions could have put my family in danger.
When you are a parent, and -- I’ll say it -- when you are a father, these stupid alpha male mistakes have horrific potential consequences. My temper endangered my family. That’s an awful mistake to make, and it left me with an indescribable, sobering realization about just how important my actions are now that I am a father. I’ll never forget the confused, quiet look on Eleanor’s face as she tried to process the interaction her father had with some stranger. It still haunts me several days later.
Being a father has led me to try to be the best version of myself, but the process isn’t complete -- it never will be. In another post, I’ll revisit how parenthood led me back to the church and my renewed quest to understand Christianity and to be a good Christian. In the meantime, I’d like to explain how this journey reminds me of John Wesley’s concept of Christian Perfection. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on this. Christian perfection, which is really about the process of becoming a better Christian -- not a perfect one -- is a lot like being a parent. It’s about striving to make the purity of your intention match your actions. You’re constantly trying to get better at it, but you’re a fallible human so you make a lot of mistakes on the way.
I am really fortunate that my mistakes so far haven’t done permanent damage. And here’s hoping that I learn from my mistakes and I strive toward being a perfect parent, even though I’ll never get there. I can’t cut corners on my path to becoming the best father I can be for my daughter.
