The Circle Is Now Complete
Yes, I have a daughter. No, I haven't written a whole lot about her. For the longest time she was a mystery wrapped in a riddle served with a side of enigma and a medium Diet Caffeine Free Whatthefuck. (She's also a redhead. There's a reason I never dated redheads. They all have a bit of Walter Kovacs in them. Zoe's not watching Sesame Street with me, I'm watching Sesame Street with HER.) Also, she was a baby, and frankly babies aren't very interesting. They void and make noise. Sometimes simultaneously. Then they sleep. Then they wake up. Repeat.
Fortunately, or unfortunately if you've ever watched TV or seen a movie or read a magazine/book or listened to music of any kind, baby girls aren't babies forever; they do grow up, and apparently they are different from, say, boys. I took advantage of Zoe's Uninteresting Phase and began to make plans for when she became a sentient being. I pretty much had Lucas dialed in from the get-go; if it flew in space or had four wheels or wore a cowl or was rendered extinct by a giant meteor strike only to be resurrected via the miracle of genetic engineering and unleashed upon a hapless Sam Neill, it was interesting to the boy. What would she like? I figured that since she was a girl, she would need to have lots of Barbies and Disney Princesses. Then I did some research, read a lot of blogs, and discovered that if I bought her Barbies and Disney Princesses I would be a horrible father and a poor excuse for a human being. So I figured I'll just let her tell me what she's all about. And hope that not messing up Kid #1 counts for something. Still...a girl.
One of the deep fears of a parent is that somewhere along the line, you'll suffer a disconnect. Your daughter, this mystery, whose veins contain your blood, whose life you are constantly in awe of and for whom you'd gladly lay down your own, will simply see though and past you. You'll have nothing in common but memories. That fear starts when they first enter the world. Some days, when they're inconsolable, crying over a bumped head or an empty tummy or something known only to them, you'll reach for them and they'll say mamamamamama and that fear creeps to the surface. That was my fear with Zoe, that there's something in me that's missing.
That was my fear. Turns out maybe she's her father's daughter after all.
