Fatherhood has ruined peace and quiet for me

I’ve been in Italy for the past 10 days, and I’m bored.

Yes, I’m bored, but not in the way you may think, and not for the reasons you may suspect. I haven’t been bored my entire time here.

My tolerance for input has increased since becoming a father, and now anything less than chaos is kind of a boring breeze.

The first week was packed to the gills. I was co-hosting a retreat centered around Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Culture.” The days were full of stimulating, productive discussion with like spirits. Great food, great cigars, great beer, great sights, great minds, great insights, great developments. It was a busy week, a fruitful week.

But the retreat is over, and now I’m bored.

Missing the bickering

Why am I bored?

Because I am dull and just want to sit inside and watch television all day? No. I don’t like TV. Because I can’t entertain myself? No. I’m pretty creative. Because I don’t have a job or any obligations and thusly suffer from a kind of postmodern ennui? No. I have a job, that’s what I am doing here. Just yesterday, I drove eight hours south and will be here for the week taking photos for a photo book, writing, and working. I’ve been working ever since I landed.

So then, why am I bored?

Because I’m alone. My wife and kids are at home. All the yelling and screaming that I have become so used to over the past few years are on the other side of the world. The bickering over who stole whose toy first is still happening I am sure, but it’s out of earshot.

The endless questions about cars, trees and if we are going to get ice cream later have been paused. The nagging feeling about safety — that feeling that wears you down over the course of the day — is absent from my quiet mind.

Off-duty dad

I would think I would love this trip all alone: the chance to be free of fatherly responsibilities for a couple of weeks; the opportunity to focus on work without distraction; the chance to be by myself again. But I don’t love it. It was fine for a couple days, novel in a way, but now it’s just kind of boring.

My tolerance for input has increased since becoming a father, and now anything less than chaos is kind of a boring breeze. My love has expanded in a way that isn’t so easy to explain. It might be summed up by that feeling you get at the end of the day. You can’t wait for your kids to go to bed because you are exhausted and fed up, yet 25 minutes after they are sleeping, you feel the need to go into their room again and give them a kiss because you miss them.

What the hell is that? One of the strange feelings that only parents know.

Been there, done that

I’ve seen all this stuff before. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve already taken in all the vistas I’m taking photos of today. I’ve already experienced all this, and it doesn’t really interest me doing it alone. When I was 25 and single, sure. When I’m 38 with a wife and kids, not really. I’ve seen enough; I would rather show them.

Some guys have a fear of settling down and starting a family. They are afraid of getting trapped or stuck with no way out. In a sense, they are right. When you have children, you are trapping yourself. You are forced together as a man and a woman. You are stuck forever as a father. You cannot go back. Your life is no longer only yours. You will never be as free as you were once before.

Stretching the soul

It’s true in all the shallow, obvious ways. But it’s true in a deeper, stranger, more emotional way, as well. My soul has been expanded outward. It’s broader than it was when I was just me. Yet, somehow, it didn’t become more shallow in the process. It’s actually grown deeper at the same time. It’s one of the mysteries of love. It grows.

I am no longer contained in a tight little shell that follows me wherever I go. I want to bring my kids with me, not out of duty — though duty is, of course, important — but because I am kind of bored without them. Because I want to share my world with them. It’s not because I love them — though I very much do — but because I like them.

From island to archipelago

I know that as soon as I get home, the chaos will hit me like a two-by-four right in the face. I will be forced to dole out instructions and mediate arguments. I will be exhausted by the time 8 p.m. rolls around. I will snap my fingers once and sternly tell them to stop whatever it is that they are doing. But in all of that, I will be whole as I know myself to be at this stage in my life.

Having a family means you are no longer only you. Your children are also you. Your sense of wholeness is deeper, yet more terrifyingly fragile at the same time. You are no longer protected and self-contained. You stop being an island and grow into an archipelago. What it means to be you means more than merely you.

That’s why I am bored here in Italy. I’m here, but it’s only one part, and I miss the whole thing.