It's Just a Head Wound

Last July: I’m sitting at the doctor's for my physical. In walks the nurse, eager to draw blood. She swivels the safety bar against my chest. “It’s always the big guys that pass out,” she says, for the hundredth time that week.

I wave it off. Call me weird, but I don’t mind the sight of blood or needles. One small prick for science and it’s done.

Last Monday: My three year old son and I are playing in the backyard, tossing empty Amazon boxes into the air. He dives to catch one, slips on the turf, and instead catches his head on the edge of a wooden bench. Loud smack and louder screams.

My hand reaches around his head to assess the mess, and comes up dark red. I apply pressure and ice and off we go to the emergency room. His first visit – I say shehecheyanu silently on the highway.

During intake he bobs happily on my knee, giving me a clear look at the head wound. Under his brown bushy hair is a two-inch gash, the skin split to show white.

He’s fine, my wife’s fine, and I was a wreck. Nauseous and sick, I felt like I was having an asthma attack and breathing through a straw. I’m about to collapse, without a bar to break my fall. I somehow hold it together, then stumble outside to get some air. A need to throw up, but false alarm. Four hours later, we head home with two staples in my son’s head. Yay parenting.

I got shook.

I’ve learned that parenting rewires the brains of moms and dads forever, with higher levels of activity in the plastic-y amygdala, which handles learning and regulates fear.

But differences abound between parents, and I can confirm this. On date nights, my wife wants to check in to make sure our kids are still alive. I want to order more ceviche.

There’s the line: Being a parent is like having a piece of you walking outside your body. I would add, “Often walking into things and breaking shit.”

I never bought into the physical link saying. I love my children, but there’s a dividing line between us.

I’ve learned that:

• Part of dad life is listening to this innate instinct to let them be, and go a little further from reach. Go make mistakes. Go see what that pile of dead bees is all about. Life will kick your ass, better get used to it.

• I must give them the space to launch and individuate.

• As much as I think I can sculpt them, the best gift I can give them is independence and teach them self-reliance. (OK, I’m likely making up for my shortcomings here.)

At the same time, I am their protector. Had my son turned to me on the verge of fainting, I’m quite sure my Tough Guy Part would’ve taken over and shield him from all those raw emotions. Shove your pain down into your stomach, signal that everything is going to be fine.

Now this is not a sustainable or smart strategy for life. There will be a day when the mask will fall off, and I will fall apart.

Perhaps I’m a swirling vortex empty of emotions

So why do I do this? What makes me, and men in general, so prone to shutting down our emotional faucet and depositing feelings in the vault? Life has taught me that emotional debts eventually get paid, and they often surface in unhealthy ways: numbing, drinking, scrolling, snacking, and other bottom-line behaviors.

In digging around my origin story I realized I had nobody around to model healthy sharing or vulnerability. The biggest emotional crater was my own dad: he’d get “emotional” only when his kids beat him in Final Jeopardy. He’s stoic, like a concrete wall. I’ve seen him cry only once in my life. He was listening to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. And both of his parents are dead.

Men rarely cry. And when we do, what a heart-opening and strange sight. It’s so out of place, like a giraffe that somehow escaped the jungle and ended up on a city street. I often tear up at weddings when the groom shares his vows and promises of love and commitment before hundreds of observers. It’s beautiful but ephemeral. Say your piece man, then lock it up!

But growing older, years of therapy, and being married to an emotionally developed person showed me that vulnerability does not make me less of a man. Quite the opposite. I’m sharing more and opening up, letting the sunlight work its healing magic. This is the way - honesty and openness.

The way is never easy

All of this runs against my hunter-gahterer ‘let’s put aside our feelings and kill that mastodon’ nature. And according to bell hooks, the patriarchy permeates culture so strongly that society doesn’t know how to respond when men do share their feelings. (Hat tip to Holly Whitaker for the reco.) We’re asked to share, and when we do, no one wants to listen. When guys break down, we run counter to masculine myths shared by the collective. We’re seen as delicate and exotic creatures, like a flower that needs surgery but there’s no manual to consult.

So I’m trying to make one.

Eventually, my iron mask will come apart. I know it’ll be a sudden and unexpected flash flood, and things will get ugly. But that’s life - a hot mess of disaster and adventures. And perhaps the most valuable gift I can impart to my offspring is to embrace what’s inside. Invite Mara to tea. Ditch the bravado and feel brave enough to know thyself and experience whatever you’re going through.

This is part of the job. It’s taken me forty years and a head wound to learn it.

4 5 things right now

Go: Self Realization Fellowship. A place to meditate in Mt. Washington.

Read: Anything but social media. I was at Whole Foods reading a magazine, and the server said, “I haven’t seen anyone read an actual book or printed magazine in years.” We’re all getting stupid and angry and knee-jerk reactions are turning us into huge jerks.

Move: Losin’ It by Fisher. My brother played this in the car recently. This is the energy I need. Pairs well with the Arnold documentary on Netflix.

Listen: Yuval Noah Harari on the Rest is Politics. This guy is brilliant and gives a fairly unbiased, hopeful, and pragmatic take on the current war. He argues that the psychological effects of brutality in the onset are so strong, that it’s almost impossible for either side to make room for empathy for the other. Sounds about right.

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