This Is The World We Live In

These Are The Things We're Given

Having a child has easily been the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. 

Humble-brag ahead: I'm usually pretty good at handling things with at least minor expertise within short order. But, having One has been a challenge every single day. Don't get me wrong, the cliche is true: it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done also. However, with great responsibility comes great anxiety.

It hadn't really ever occurred to me that safety of another would be a paramount priority, mostly because I spent a lot of my own life with something teetering between apathy and a deathwish. The world has always been a scary place, but I have always bucked back at those fears daring them to smite me. "Smite me O' mighty smiter!" I'd often live by those thoughts. Sometimes, it almost happened too. Anxiety has always been high, but I would still stare at it and tell it to fuck itself waiting to get struck by lightning.

One, though...

He can't take care of himself. He doesn't have a chip on his shoulder, and I don't want to give him one either. I earned mine through a bunch of bullshit that I shouldn't have had to go through. I'm better for it, but I'm also worse in a lot of ways that have taken many, many years of therapy to tear apart. 

So what is there to do when the world is seemingly out to get us? What do we do when socio-political climates are poised for eruption? How is a father supposed to protect his son from what could look to some like the beginning of an end?

I'm sitting across the room from my wife and One as she reads him a book about monsters eating children (it's a kids book, and it's hilarious, shut up). He is giggling and enjoying himself and I want to lock him in the attic and never let him out so he never stops making joyous noise. I want to dig a moat around the house and fill it with sharks with little lasers on their heads. I want to build trebuchets, get black siding and barbed wire so that it looks like the Adamm's Family live here and no one dares to run up on the porch for any reason whatsoever. 

We can deal without Prime same-day deliveries, right?

RIGHT?!

Is there a need for self-defense classes? Is there a need for firearm licenses? Is there a need to turn the basement into a fallout shelter? 

What I'm trying to say is what I said in the start: this shit isn't for the faint of heart. 

"I found glass in the garden. I dug it up with my thumb. I won't let you cut your feet when you learn to run."