On Being A Man
I’ve been away from the keyboard for the better part of the past two weeks as the final stretch of getting married and moving into my first home rounded the corner this past weekend, so I’m pretty out of the loop as far as political/cultural on goings are concerned. Engaging in this whole process has been, for obvious reasons, incredibly rewarding, but it has also been a fascinating first person psychological ride that I have great faith will bear valuable fruits both in the immediate future and down the road.
I don’t know if the process of getting married and buying your first home is like this for everyone who passes through those gates, but I’ve found that a lot of my personal demons and shadows have come out of the woodwork to endure their time in the sun and account for their hurt/anger/resentment/sins. I went through something of a condensed and intensive romantic crisis early last week through which my very good friend Chris Dierkes was kind enough to counsel me via email. The nature of the crisis had nothing directly to do with my now wife or impending marriage so much as it had to do with a whole host of insecurities and unlearned lessons from past failures choosing to rear their ugly heads as I counted down to one of the most significant commitments I will ever make.
Having mostly past through the fulcrum of that expurgation (I had another whopper of a dream last night that played on similar, but slightly different themes that previously brought me to near paralysis), I found next in line a whole host of familial related sink holes that awaited my attention throughout the weekend. I literally broke down sobbing in the car last night as we drove home, overcome with the searing weight of some of the twisted truths I was speaking aloud for the first time to the person I trust most in this world. Truths (at least for me) about the death of my father when I was nine, about my relationship to my mother, to my brother, my own sense of self-worth, and the murky genesis of the grinding achiever ambition I drag around with me over which I had puzzled only weeks prior.
I have come to the conclusion that weddings done right are highly emotional affairs. Perhaps not in the grueling fashion I’ve described above (and, to be sure, overall the event was stunning in its beauty and electric in it joy), but the kind of energy, effort, and emotion that go into a successful wedding is, I would argue, fertile ground for some hefty psycho-analytic digging if you’re of a mind.
The theme that stuck with me throughout all of this, and upon which I touched prior to my stag weekend, is what it means to be a man in this day and age. That question has been sitting squarely upon my chest over the past couple of months, demanding answers as I’ve inched closer towards the precipices of “husband” and “father”.
There are those at the League who are in a much better position, perhaps, to answer those questions than I am, but I think the discussion itself doesn’t get as much play as it ought to at a time when its outcomes might mean more to us than we care to consider. [Read more →]
July 2, 2009 51 Comments
