100 Words Per Mile: Reflections - 3

I'm still wrestling with a fear of too much control.

In this week’s 100 Words Per Mile, I admitted something a little embarrassing: I believe I can write things into existence with my fiction.

Or, maybe I believed it once. I’m leaning closer to agnostic about all that right now. After all, while I wrote a pandemic novel in which the protagonist’s wife dies and a pandemic then soon arrived in real life, my wife did not die—but I still wrestle with the idea that by projecting/preparing for a certain kind of doom, I will be engaging with a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

When I finished writing The Cadence of Doom (which is still looking for a home for whoever may be interested), I realized the novel was ultimately about hope, control, and letting go. In my own experience, that’s the true key to happiness—releasing ourselves from the illusion of control.

Now, that can get dangerous pretty quickly. We don’t want to discard our own agency, of course. We don’t want to spare ourselves from accountability. But we should spend more time appreciating process and hard work, because the outcomes are not completely up to us. Sometimes, whether something works out or not cannot be dictated by us at all.

Which brings us to parenting.

Earlier this week I saw The Fantastic Four: First Steps in the theater (I’m a Cinemark Movie Club member) and found myself absolutely moved by a Marvel movie. While it serves at the introduction of the Fantastic Four to the MCU and a vehicle for the usual CGI battle fest, it’s also a movie about the lengths we will go to protect our children, and what that means for the world at large.

In the case of the Reed Richards and Sue Storm, they are super-powered brainiacs. They have all the requisite skills and abilities needed to control their own destiny—but even Sue admits to not knowing what the future will hold for their son.

While Sue is in labor, Reed tells her everything is going to be okay, and she responds, “You don’t know that. You can’t know that.” Which is true. We can only respond to what’s in front of us and hope for the best.

But hope. That’s the antidote to too much control. This week, as much as it disoriented me, I leaned into that feeling of hope. I forgave myself for wanting more and decided to simply do all that was required of me—which was to parent.

A couple weeks before this, I also caught the new Superman movie, which is about the limits of parenting in its own way. In that one, Clark Kent wrestles with his purpose, as dictated by his biological, Kryptonian parents. But it’s his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, who explains, “Parents aren't for tellin' their children who they're supposed to be. We are here to give y'all tools to help you make fools of yourselves all on your own.”

I’m still finding that balance between taking my responsibility as a teacher for my children seriously, while also giving them the separation and distance they need to figure things out on their own. They are still young (both under four), but it’s good practice for me to think about all of this now.

I was recently alone with the kids while my wife got a head start on her classroom. They were stressing me out with their horseplay, climbing on furniture and tripping over things on the floor. I removed all the sources of that stress, to free myself of the fear, and seconds later (no, really, seconds) my son falls on his face while crawling, and busts his lip open.

It was too perfect of a moment.

I’m learning if I grip too tightly and force the issue, I may limit the kids’ growth. If I’m too hands off, I feel like I’m not doing enough, that my negligence is harmful.

So I lean on hope. Because suffering over hypotheticals does nothing for anyone.