Ephemera

So it’s not breaking news that my baby just turned 18, and as the progression of time insists on marching arrogantly on, so to does my status as “parent of children” shift. I’ve seen this coming for some time and like the weatherman unable to prevent it, I’m now staring down the eye of a Cat 5 Identity Crisis that threatens to wipe my existence off the map. I often wonder how my parents handled the passing of purpose from :”Mommy” and “Daddy” to Marilyn and Vito but recognize that the challenges of this phase shift are entirely unique. 

I became a full time father before I ever held a full time job. I have worn the hat of “Daddy” for so long I have struggled to remember my own name and while I recognize that this moment was always intended to be ephemeral, I can’t help but tremble slightly in the shadow of it’s inevitability. My only solace comes in knowing that my children will carry the title of “Parent” and likewise one day face this moment of existential reckoning, and so too will their children, and their children after,  ad infinitum. 

This year long contemplation comes now to its conclusion in the following poem. A revision of a revision of a half-baked idea that has been sitting idly in my “notes” app begging for  perspective to fully mature. To the my maybe 3 or 4 avid followers out there, I hope you find comfort and/or familiarity in my words because honestly they are my best hope for immortality.

Somewhere, somehow, someway everything changed. 
I stopped being the sun and the moon
And became the just bearable goof
Good for a few laughs every now and then
No heavy lifting, just the light stuff
And in a blink it all passed…

Somewhere along the way
I stopped being essential
They stopped needing or I stopped being needed
A bath in the sink became a protest in the streets
A few wobbly steps, a thousand mile road trip
And in a blink they evolved…

Somehow they grew 
No longer dependent on my wisdom
And swelling with defiance
In asking, they questioned, they grew
Overcoming my antiquated notions
They transcended my philosophies
And in a blink they were me… 

Someway time burgeoned 
After all they are only small for a minute
And before too long I became a footnote
*Non-essential reference material 
Like a tattered and torn thesaurus at the bottom of a drawer 
Sentimentality keeps it around
But no one remembers why they ever needed it
And in a blink all the dust settled…

Somewhere along the way 
My status as god was downgraded 
First to minor deity 
To necessary evil 
To whatever state I currently occupy
Anachronistic relic?
Historical Cleric?
Goofball the Graybeard?
And in a blink the ink on my id dried…

Somehow impossibly
Everything happened all at once
I know, I know…I get it 
Kids grow
Time flows 
Circumstances change 
Everything starts anew
But did it have to pass so quickly?
Did the “moment of remembering” 
Have to become the “recently forgotten”?
Don’t blink cause you’ll miss it all…
 
Someway I survive
Of all the lives I’ve known 
Of all the titles I’ve worn
This one has been my favorite
So perhaps now I must concede
Step carefully down with nothing left to say 
But the title I once stylishly wore
Has now been handed down
To the three lives I delicately wrought
The once proud Daddy 
Answering now  to “Dad”
Dares to blink