I have become a father.
It continues to sound strange or even look strange when I write it. But here we are, I am a father. I am a father!!! How bizarre.
Where was I? Oh yes, previously I was at the bottom, looking upwards for a way out of the depths. I was beginning to surface when I met Emel at a dub party, big sub heavy bass vibrating off of the speakers. It was the right place and the right time and we spoke, and it all just clicked. So perfectly and so organically. From the beginning, the strangest sense of new and old seemed to accompany our relationship. Frequently I commented on how it felt as if we had known each other for far longer than we had in fact known each other.
It was quite bizarre, but it felt so good. Then she left, off to Turkey to spend time with her father who was seriously ill. We kept in contact and even ended up meeting later in the summer in London. This too was wonderful. We even arranged a holiday in Turkey. It was all a wonderful waking dream, life no longer lived at the bottom, looking up for some hopeful way out.
Then we returned back to Seville and got back into our ways of getting to know each other, either at her flat or at mine. Then one day, late September, she couldn't look me in the eye. I think I knew, but still wasn't quite ready to hear it.
“I'm pregnant.” She said.
Everything changed. Somehow I was ready for it. I have no idea how that was the case, because in no way was I ready for it, but somehow, I guess I just was.
So lets go back in time a little bit.
I am 41 years old now, and I really thought that I was never going to be a father. I thought after the collapse of my marriage, I was going to cut all strings and then just float through life pursuing experience over objects, and just fade away into meaninglessness.
Now, I have a son. An actual kicking, screaming, pooping and peeing son. Who smiles. And grimaces, and sighs contentedly when finally all of his boxes of requirements are ticked. An actual son. It is madness.
And here is where I would like to have my cake and eat it.
I am 41. It is 2023. He will be 20 and I will be 61. And it will be 2043. These numbers astound me. I really wish I could have had hi8m sooner, when I was younger.
But when I was younger, I was a fool. I was in the worst space to be a father. I was immature, petulant and a child myself. I smoked far too much weed. In fact, looking back, since I turned 16, that is all I ever did and all I wanted to do. I had such an incredibly sad and limited drive and motivation for life.
Don't get me wrong, I loved every last second of it when I was inside of it, but now, looking back, I cannot help but shudder at the waste of all that time. With the wrong person, in the wrong headspace, too stoned to know any better.
I wish I could have the mental clarity and the experience and be in the right place such as I find myself in currently, as well as my youth. And my old hairline. And my old teeth.
Now, I just feel kind of old.
To conclude. Emel and I registered Finley Akay Hennessy Can at the civil registry office today here in Seville. There was a young man and his girlfriend, they could not have been older than 16. I think about these two children.
36 when your child is 20. 61 when your child is twenty. Maturity and experience, or the vigour of youth?
None get to walk both paths, but it really would be nice to have my cake and eat it too.
