And just when I thought the coast was clear and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding, the noise from the baby monitor began in full force. With a sigh, I rolled onto my back and Vivian slipped from the bed. By the time London finally calmed—which took a good half hour—Vivian wasn’t in the mood for a second attempt.
In the morning, Vivian and I had more luck. So much luck, in fact, that I cheerfully volunteered to take care of London when she woke so that Vivian could go back to sleep. London, however, must have been just as tired as Vivian; it wasn’t until I’d finished my second cup of coffee that I heard various noises but no cries, emanating from the baby monitor.
In her room, the mobile above the crib was rotating, and London was wiggly and full of energy, her legs shooting like pistons. I couldn’t help but smile and she suddenly smiled as well.
It wasn’t gas; it wasn’t a reflexive tic. I’d seen those, and I almost didn’t believe my eyes. This was a real smile, as true as the sunrise, and when she emitted an unexpected giggle, the already brilliant start to my day was suddenly made a thousand times better.
I’m not a wise man.
I’m not unintelligent, mind you. But wisdom means more than being intelligent, because it encompasses understanding, empathy, experience, inner peace, and intuition, and in retrospect, I obviously lack many of those traits.
Here’s what else I’ve learned: Age doesn’t guarantee wisdom, any more than age guarantees intelligence. I know that’s not a popular notion—don’t we frequently regard our elders as wise partially because they’re gray and wrinkled?—but lately I’ve come to believe that some people are born with the capacity to become wise while others aren’t, and in some people, wisdom seems to be evident even at a young age.
My sister Marge, for instance. She’s wise, and she’s only five years older than I am. Frankly, she’s been wise as long as I’ve known her. Liz, too. She’s younger than Marge and yet her comments are both thoughtful and empathetic. In the aftermath of a conversation with her, I often find myself contemplating the things she’d said. My mom and dad are also wise and I’ve been thinking about it a lot these days because it’s become clear to me that even though wisdom runs in the family, it bypassed me entirely.
If I were wise, after all, I would have listened to Marge back in the summer of 2007, when she drove me out to the cemetery where our grandparents were buried and asked me whether I was absolutely sure that I wanted to marry Vivian.
If I were wise, I would have listened to my father when he asked me whether I was sure I should strike out on my own and start my own advertising company when I was thirty-five years old.
If I were wise, I would have listened to my mom when she told me to spend as much time with London as I could, since kids grow up so fast, and you can never get those years back.
But like I said, I’m not a wise man, and because of that, my life pretty much went into a tailspin. Even now, I wonder if I’ll ever recover.
Where does one begin when trying to make sense of a story that makes little sense at all? At the beginning? And where is the beginning?
Who knows?
So let’s start with this. When I was child, I grew up believing that I’d feel like an adult by the time I was eighteen, and I was right. At eighteen, I was already making plans. My family had lived paycheck to paycheck, and I had no intention of doing the same. I had dreams of starting my own business, of being my own boss, even if I wasn’t sure what I was actually going to do. Figuring that college would help steer me in the proper direction, I went to NC State but the longer I was there, the younger I seemed to feel. By the time I collected my degree I couldn’t shake the notion that I was pretty much the same guy I’d been in high school.
Nor had college helped me decide on the kind of business I’d start. I had little in the way of real-world experience and even less capital, so deferring my dream, I took a job in advertising for a man named Jesse Peters. I wore suits to the office and worked a ton of hours and yet, more often than not, I still felt younger than my actual age might indicate. On weekends, I frequented the same bars I did in college, and I often imagined that I could start over as a freshman, fitting right in with whatever fraternity I happened to join. Over the next eight years there would be even more changes; I’d get married and purchase a house and start driving a hybrid but even then, I didn’t necessarily always feel like the adult version of me. Peters, after all, had essentially taken the place of my parents—like my parents, he could tell me what to do or else—which made it seem as though I was still pretending. Sometimes, when sitting at my desk, I’d try to convince myself: Okay, it’s official. I’m now a grown-up.
That realization came, of course, after London was born and Vivian quit her job. I wasn’t quite thirty years old and the pressure I felt to provide for my family over the next few years required sacrifice on a scale that even I hadn’t expected, and if that isn’t being a grown-up, I don’t know what is. After finishing at the agency—on days when I actually made it home at a reasonable hour—I’d walk through the door and hear London call out, “Daddy!” and always wish that I could spend more time with her. She’d come running and I’d scoop her up, and she’d wrap her arms around my neck, and I’d remind myself that all the sacrifices had been worth it, if only because of our wonderful little girl.
In the hectic rush of life, it was easy to convince myself that the important things—my wife and daughter, my job, my family—were going okay, even if I couldn’t be my own boss. In rare moments, when I imagined a future, I would find myself picturing a life that wasn’t all that different than the one I was currently leading, and that was okay, too. On the surface, things seemed to be running rather smoothly, but I should have taken that as a warning sign. Trust me when I say that I had absolutely no idea that within a couple of years, I’d wake in the mornings feeling like one of those immigrants on Ellis Island who’d arrived in America with nothing but the clothes on their back, not speaking the language, and wondering, What am I going to do now?
When, exactly, did it all begin to go wrong? If you ask Marge, the answer is obvious: “It started going downhill when you met Vivian,” she’s told me more than once. Of course, being Marge, she would automatically correct herself. “I take that back,” she would add. “It started way before that, when you were still in grade school and hung that poster on your wall, the one with the girl in the skimpy bikini with the big bahoonas. I always liked that poster, by the way, but it warped your thinking.” Then, after further consideration, she would shake her head, speculating, “Now that I think about it, you were always kind of screwed up, and coming from the person who’s always been regarded as the family screwup, that’s saying something. Maybe your real problem is that you’ve always been too damn nice for your own good.”
And that’s the thing. When you start trying to figure out what went wrong—or, more specifically, where you went wrong—it’s a bit like peeling an onion. There’s always another layer, another mistake in the past or a painful memory that stands out, which then leads one back even further in time, and then even further, in search of the ultimate truth. I’ve reached the point where I’ve stopped trying to figure it out: The only thing that really matters now is learning enough to avoid making the same mistakes again.