This is the picture of a man. A man who shot himself in the foot. He was a boy, but things change. Looking back on it, he wasn't sure when it happened. The change. Some friends told him it was after he had children. To be more accurate, let's say became a father. He was looking back on his year, trying desperately to think of something to get or make or do for his wife for Christmas. It was Christmas Eve. It was too late. But looking back over the year, he waxed nostalgic, remembering a time when he wrote a short story on a typewriter with a typeball. Which would make it an IBM, though he wasn't entirely sure this typewriter actually had that configuration. The story was about a boy. The way that boy felt, the way he wrote, the way he was waiting for a girl sitting at the front desk in a chiropractor's office. He thought that was maybe his best work. He wondered where it had disappeared to. He thought about picking up the thread of that lost writing. But he felt that he could no longer call himself a boy. There were certainly boyish things about him still. The way he lost his temper with inanimate objects. He had given up on hoping that would ever go away. The way he still felt compelled to show off trivial knowledge. But there were things that had changed too. The way he felt less compelled to use fear as a punishment towards his children. The move away from the compulsion of superior force when playing with them. His children hadn't made him into a man. But the reflections of himself that he saw in them scared him. This encouraged him to change. The way they treated each other, and occasionally the cat.
He had decided to have a serious look at his motivations. To change things for his younger daughter that he was already afraid he had screwed up for his elder. The motivations weren't even there. There was no reason behind his temper, none behind his bullying. It was a reflection of the conditions under which he was raised. The pride he took in his heritage combined with the shame and anger of his own childhood. The way he wasn't good enough. The way criticism was so natural. It was easy to excuse this by telling himself that he knew enough about things to prefer the best. That he was smart enough to see a way to make it better. But he just felt like he was coming across as unhappy. He was trying to let go of that before he passed it on. It didn't seem to have done him any good. But that was hard to see because it was such a part of who he was. Either way, he wasn't so attached to that part of himself that he felt it would merit being passed on.
What was the motivation to be a good father? Why even worry so much? Why try? Some of it was fear. He didn't like people to have negative opinions of him. That could be frustrating. Even if they were well-earned. It may have been that he secretly agreed with them. He wasn't that nice of a person. He was aware of a lot of his flaws, even if he quietly found it interesting on the rare occasion when new ones were pointed out to him. Related to that fear was the idea that if someone he felt so attached to, felt was such a part of him, disliked him, it might be too close of a reflection to stomach. He wanted to be loved for being the person he was, even if that person was mostly a projection of who he wanted to be. He guessed that most people projected who they would like to be into their interactions. Maybe this is what made us better people, this unwillingness to appear as the selfish creatures of fear we all were. Again, this part was just a guess.
This reflection turned into a long way of saying he hadn't gotten his wife anything for Christmas. This wife. It turned out she was just a person. She liked to be thought of on occasion. She was pleased by someone going out of their way for her, even if it hadn't required a great deal of effort.
He had asked around. People had ideas for what to get her, but they were mostly silly, or things he had already done. Mostly people were shocked that he was asking on Christmas Eve. He had prefaced it by saying that he hated to disappoint pre-conceived notions or break with tradition. No one had listened to that part. Here are some examples. A puppy. What are her hobbies? Get her something related to those. Get her a massage. Set her up with a class. Does she like to eat? Does she like perfume? Does she like jewelry? Every suggestion was met with an excuse, a denial, a reason that felt hollow. I just did, I already did, we did that last year. He had no idea what to do. Christmas Eve wasn't technically the first time he had thought about it. Previous thoughts had always bounced back. You'll have time. You did that already. You'll think of something. You're good on your feet in last minute crunches. You'll think of something even if you have to stay up all night. Which he was doing anyways. All this to say that all the good ideas were things he had done already. There were times that he liked delays in gratification. He liked to write humorous or threatening things most of the way into a post-it note pad. The idea that someone would find it and be confused made him smile. Or that no one would ever find it. That the world would end before anyone found the things he had written on the crossbars in the drop ceiling of his room in college. Although it was more likely that the building would be torn down before the world ended. The odds were on the demolition rather than the destruction. The end result was the same, no one would ever find them. But this proclivity had been pushed aside this year. Specially ordered jewelry had been delivered the same day. Project space improvement had happened as soon as possible. Some of this was fear. His elder child had loose lips. She would tell you about your Sriracha-related Christmas present before you had even thought about Christmas. The love of delay was still alive on occasion. He had saved a box of plastic tools for his kids and acted like the tweakers had stolen them from the free pile. He was saving them for Christmas. He wanted to be firm with his daughter, but he wasn't made of stone either. He thought a little more about the reason behind this love of delay. His odd relationship with time. He very much preferred to be on time to places. To the point where it stressed him out if he couldn't be there a few minutes early. How could he love the delay? It might have been control. When you decide when something arrives, you are in charge of it. He was not in control of Christmas.
Christmas was supposed to be the holiday where you showed everyone you love that you loved them. That usually involved buying something. He didn't mind that, but sometimes he felt like the buying had become more important than the showing of love. Sometimes he would buy things that sort of reminded him of someone, but that he didn't really have any hope of them needing. This was terrible. Christmas started to be associated with that feeling. That dread. That rotten hangover belly.
How could he show love without a physical manifestation that he had traded a representation of value traded to him in recompense for his time? He worried that the proofs of love had become too much a manifestation of the job that stressed him out, that made him feel sleepy every day, even his days off. He decided to try and document this idea, but it turned into a rambling interrupted by machines chiming, bodily wastes spilling, the demands from every direction. His love, his important thought was lost under this shower of noise. So Christmas was given a miss that year. Because all the good ideas were taken by past self and future self was too sleepy to help out.
This is my proof of love
