Disturbing Things That I Don't Want to Acknowledge

I've had a couple of things on my mind for the last week or so. The first is a story from my dating life and the second is a story from my life as a father. At first glance it seems that the stories are not related (other than being horrific) in any way but closer inspection reveals something more.

If you know me a little you probably know that I am not the most touchy-feely guy in the world. I tend to be someone that always has a level had and I am not prone to being mushy or overly sentimental (feel free to insert your own adjectives). In my dating life all of these things are magnified into something that would probably qualify as a severe shortcoming.

My wife is a saint. I'll never fully understand why she put up with as much she did in our dating life so I've stopping trying to understand it. One of the things that I really struggled with was love. Not just knowing what it was but also saying it. Ugh... I am cringing as I try to write this out. My body is trying to override the actions of my fingers.

Anyway, I forgot how it all came about but at some point I started substituting "moo" for "love". That's right, I would say "I moo you" or just plain "moo". Who does that? Holy douche chills. I was such a freaking child. I wish I could blame this on the idiocy of youth but I was in my early thirties.

More on this in a minute - I need to get to my other story.

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We've taken great strides (borderline obsessive) to make sure that our house was safe for our boy. Well before the boy came I installed a permanent gate at the top of the stairs (it took me much longer than I care to admit, but that's a denial story for another day). Our cupboards have door locks. I installed a cat door in the door to the basement. That door already had a latch system installed - I believe the previous owners had grandchildren.

The other day Rebecca came home with some groceries. She took Jack out of his coat and let him run off as he usually does. I grabbed a couple of bags and headed for the kitchen. As I rounded the corner in the hallway I saw a little hand protruding out from the door to the basement. And then it disappeared into the darkness on the other side of the door.

Time seemed to stop. I dropped my groceries and sprinted towards the door. Thud, thud...... long, terrible silence..... crying.

I am again cringing as I write this. I opened the door and - once again, this seemed like an eternity even though it wasn't - turned on the light. Jack was laying face up on the landing a few steps below. He was crying but fortunately had no marks and was just fine after we bribed him with some food.

Neither one of us slept well that night. The whole sequence replayed in my mind over and over again. I can't get it out of my head. I can still see his little arm sticking out the other side of the door (he loves to go on the other side of doors during our "hello/goodbye" game. I can still see him laying there as I turned on the light. I could go on and on about this story... well, actually, I probably couldn't.

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So how could these two stories possibly be related? I consciously (or subconsciously) made a decision to not let them into my thoughts.

In some ways the story from my dating life is more interesting in that I had actually forgotten that this had taken place. You might think, no big deal, everyone forgets details from the past. As Rebecca will attest, I remember all of that kind of stuff. When it comes to remember minutia (especially stuff that I can use against someone later for the sole purpose of amusing myself) my mind is like a steel trap. I really do think that I had subconsciously eradicated this little story from my brain. Rebecca reminded me of this little word a couple of weeks ago and it instantly came back to me.

The story about Jack falling down the stairs is a little different. While I want to get it out of my head, I've caught myself dealing with it in a weird sort of way. I've noticed that when I told the story to others that I said that he fell down four or five stairs. If I am being brutally honest with myself (something that I try to do with every fiber of my being) I know that there are more stairs between the top of the stairs and the landing. Maybe seven, maybe eight. For some reason five seems safer so in my head I've gone with that number. In the days since I have climbed the stairs and I've refused to see how many stairs there actually are. I'm not sure why - maybe I'm too scared to acknowledge the seriousness of the incident.

So what does this all mean? I guess that it is a good example of how we deal with things that either don't want to be true or want to be true. I remember being at a party a few years ago and overhearing a co-worker saying that the only man she had ever been with was her husband. I knew for a fact this wasn't true but in her head she wanted it to be true. I've heard others brag about being faithful to their wives when I knew that it wasn't true. Every religious believer that I know - both the fanatic and the casual believer - flatly refuses inquiry into their beliefs because they are afraid of what is on the other side of that door. I think we do this all the time in life and I'm not always sure why. I think that one of the reasons that I have no filters when it comes to embarrassing myself in these blogs is that I don't want to be scared of who I am or what I've done. I really do want to not be afraid to be myself, for better or worse. Maybe somehow exposing the warts allows me to deal with my own shortcomings. While I still haven't counted the stairs I think my acknowledgement of my fear is at least a step in conquering it. I have promised myself that I will count them later.

Then again, maybe I've got it all wrong and this whole thing is just a cover story that I've created for myself.