Small business
Last night with family. It’s 12:37 midwestern time, less than three hours until we get up to load their van and ride to the airport in the dark. I roll over, waiting to even feel sleepy, and must have let out a sigh.
“Ha! What you say, Daddy?” giggles Tobias, suddenly breaking the silence of our room, as dark and quiet as we can get it. Squirmy baby brother Malachi is now fast asleep across the hall with mommy, the most practical arrangement we could come up with as we corralled our bouncy little boy back into bed at eleven. He’s been laying quieter than me on his half, but what I sensed is correct: he’s as awake as I am.
We talk a bit about the situation, a two and a half year old young man and his insomniac father.
“Shall I put on some music?”, and he whispers in agreement back so Arvo Pärt’s choral works join us from the headboard. I keep clicking the tiny speaker quieter, and with it the morning’s alarm, as the beautiful music fills our silence and, gradually, flutteringly, my thoughts. I wonder what Tobias could be, would be, thinking about; his energetic fingers and legs and brilliant little vocabulary obediently mute beside me as I too try not to toss and turn.
I couldn’t have listened to both discs (all two hours?) but before I finally fell asleep I remember my iPhone and oldest son both at peace above and beside me.
It’s the same old questions. Sometimes I find serenity, deciding “what Tobias wants to be when he grows up — that’s more important now”. But Malachi is already growing up too.
Two boys already, whose dad still hasn’t ruled out firefighter or airplane pilot or rock star or farmer. But probably something to do with computers. Something that takes all the will and energy and unlikelihood of ever fitting in and turns it into something good, all within whatever amount of time we have here on earth to figure out why we’re here and get it done. Would they be better off if I proved it possible, or better if I didn’t fail again?
Maybe this, like so much else, really isn’t up to me. But it’s still keeping me up.