the detonator

no, i will not 'grieve' my pre-parent self

Julie Mehretu, Looking Back to a Bright New Future

I recently saw something I was not supposed to see.

I’d left my house past dark. Hours passed, and then I saw it.

Not an Unidentified Flying Object, for it was not Flying. 

An Unidentified Object. Several, in fact. 

Wait. 

Much like a time traveler, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

—

The night began at an improv theater in Los Feliz. My last show in LA. Lots of fans, by which I mean friends, came out to support.

The final show was a hit.

“Drinks?” my friends asked – they were heading to The Dresden, an LA institution known best as the piano bar where, for the last 40 years, a married couple named Marty and Elaine performed six nights a week. 

I’da usually said no – I’m the parent of two human children – but this night felt special. Our last show. “Let’s do it.”

The whole place felt like velvet and the tables were full. Seeing it all through the hollowed out eyes of a new parent, it all felt like one of those ancient Roman bacchanals where everyone’s eating grapes and having sex and breathing fire. 

I was agog, shocked at what was all around me. It was clear as night - people, everywhere, just…having a good time? Enjoying themselves? In the hour of ten approaching eleven? 

Like I said, a bacchanal. 

It felt like the first time you see your teacher outside of school having a good time at TGIFridays and you’re like, “What fresh hell is this Ms. Lane?? You’re not allowed out of school: get to the English room and wait for us to come back tomorrow morning!!” 

If I was deep in The Tunnel, as

Kevin Maguire

from

The New Fatherhood

calls the first five years or so of parenting, then everyone else must be too. But they were not. Or they were, but their tunnel had a rave in it. 

Here, the drinks flowed like alcohol. Time didn’t exist. Whenever their night ended, eight hours later, their morning would begin. Or ten hours. Twelve. It didn’t matter. All these people were living it up with nary a care about when they needed to go home so they could get up the next morning with the children and also not forget to change the time on the Hatch bedlight thing so it stays red with the white noise until 8 am rather than 7 am because if you don't it'll switch to birds right at 7 am and Wilder will wake up RIGHT AWAY whereas if you set it to 8 am he might stay sleeping till like 7:45 am giving you 45 minutes of free time unless of course Emma June wakes up in which case you gotta feed her etc. 

We sat on the back patio. Quinn had a beer, Tyler whiskey. Usually I’d get a Diet Coke but I’d had two right before the show and was already pretty zooted, so I drank water.

Tyler had just gotten back from a solo trip to Tokyo. He shared how nice, how healing, it was to be alone. 

"That sounds so nice," I found myself saying in a tone that felt sensual. How casually he spoke of this forbidden fruit of free time. To simply be alone. How I craved it now with all the children and responsibilities, my home and brain overflowing with decisions I’ll regret no matter which way I go. 

Hang with kids; regret not writing. 

Write; regret not hanging with fam.

Tyler was heading to Marfa, TX soon with his dog Buddy to produce a mutual friend’s movie. He and Buddy would be there for a month and a half.

I nearly hurled. I shouldn’t be hearing this. I can’t know this stuff. It’s too much, hearing and seeing how these non- parents are spending their days and lives. 

I slurped my water. 

—

It wasn’t always this way. Freshman year of college we all went into the girls bathroom, held a sideways beer can in both our hands, screamed, and I mean really screamed, "DETONATOR" and then slammed the can into our heads, repeating the hitting until a small hole presented itself at which point we would stab that tiny hole with a key to make the hole bigger, put our mouths on the hole, and then open the can normally so as to create some sort of force funnel that would help get the beer into us faster. We did that a good amount. I did that. 

There was no tunnel, but there were funnels. And great times had by all.

In my late twenties, I realized I’d never really liked alcohol. Which made more room for the other stuff (drugs) which made room for the mistakes (more drugs) which made more room for the decision to not do any of it anymore. But all throughout, I was deciding. It was my choice.

I don’t make choices anymore. Not really. 

Now, I sit around and watch half of the movie that I’ve been dying to see for months (Dream Scenario) before yawning, saying “I’m sleeeeepy,” getting in bed and playing Factorio on the computer until my eyes close of their own accord and I call it a night.

— 

The other morning, around 10 am, I drove the kids (2) to the mall. A gift for mama. In the five hours since waking up, I’d been thrown up on at least five times, changed two diapers of two different sizes, wiped two very different styles of poop from two butts of different sizes. A real renaissance man. 

After spending thirty minutes in the parking garage feeding Emma June, we moseyed over to the elevator. A kind teenage girl held it open for us. “Thank you,” I said. 

A moment of silence, then: “I don’t know if you already know this, but you have throw up on your sweatshirt.”

“Oh no I know,” I said, interrupting her halfway through. “I’m well aware I can feel it, the heat of it.” 

Way too much detail but whatever. She laughed and I laughed and then it was awkard silence until the doors opened and we parted ways, she to continue her life and me to watch the Glendale Americana’s outdoor water fountain go nuts with waves and sprays. Then it started to actually rain. Pour. Wilder had a rain jacket, I was covering EJ’s stroller with a patchwork of her backup onesies. I stood there letting the rain wash away the vomit from my sweatshirt. 

This, I think, was a good moment.

—

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what you lose as you descend into the tunnel of parenting. I think it’s dignity.  

You spend a whole life creating some semblance of self:what you believe, how you comport (comport!) yourself in the world, what you will and won't allow upon your person. Added together, these things make up the concept of dignity. Here is how I'll treat the world, and here's how the world will hopefully treat me back. But then you have a kid and then another and all of that becomes second fiddle. Because your two first fiddles don’t give a fuck. They will shit and vomit and scream until they get what they want and honestly, good for them.

But I am not afforded the same luxury. I cannot scream in anger when Wilder refuses my help carrying fifteen toy cars to his room and melts down every time they fall to the ground but NO HE HAS TO DO IT HIMSELF. 

What can I do but say in a kind voice over and over, "No, dada needs some space so he can go potty" as I hear Wilder pawing at the bathroom door until the doorknob turns and hello Wilder how are you buddy oh you want to see what dada’s poopoo looks like again? Fantastic idea come close here it is, dadas poopoo.  

The anger of parenting comes fused with a healthy helping of shame about that anger. You’re not supposed to be angry. And if you’re a man, anger is sorta cliché, no? Like there he goes, angry dad piece of shit. Get him a Marlboro Red the evening paper, would ya?

But there is anger. 

Anger, the second stage of grief. 

Grieve your old self, I am told. That person is dead and gone and it’s okay to be angry. Except, I don’t want to grieve my old self. It feels pathetic. Okay, I’m back at denial. 

I never loved staying out late, but I damn well wish I could. Detonating beers using the skull that protects my brain wasn't the best use of time, but it was a thrill. It was liberating. There I was, doing what I wanted to do, not a care in the world save, of course, for my own well being which I'd entrusted to the Men’s Crew team with whom I Detonated. 

It’s not like detonating beers gave me dignity. But choosing to detonate beers gave me a sense of who I was and who I was not. 

Just like now. Dignity is something you gamble on new experiences. Will this make me feel more or less myself? Slowly, a self emerges, sort of. Except the self never comes, always a little ways ahead like the beer can dangling from the string in front of your face, waiting for you to crush it against your own forehead.

Indignities abound, and in so doing create their opposites.

I find dignity in admitting the shameful things. The anger and the bad feelings my brain tells me not to have. I find it in writing about it all down, and making people laugh, and even in how annoying being a parent can be. Many truths all true at once: grief and anger of a past self now gone, dignity of becoming someone my kids will love and know loves them back, and of course, the sprinkles of joy so potent they gaslight everything else away until all you’ve got is a ball and a fence and you’re throwing the ball over the fence, walking the two blocks to get it from the apartment building’s parking lot, throwing it back, walking back home and repeating the sequence, again and again. It isn’t detonating, exactly, but it’s close: something dumb you do because it’s fun. 

—

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Comment, ya lil omlette

1. Have you grieved your past, non parent self? Or really any other past self?

2. Have you ever detonated a beer can over your head? What other dumb shit did you do with alcohol?

3. For parents of older kids, do you ever get that old self back???

6. This one brought up a lot of big feelings for me so I just wanna open it up share whatever just be kind and rewind etc.