Just Hanging Curtains
My dad just left my house.
He came over to help me put up some curtains for my daughter, who’s about to be here.
It’s just putting holes in walls, screws in the holes, and a pole on holder things that hold up the pole.
But I had to call my dad for help.
How can you call yourself a man when your own inadequacies stop you from being one?
I have a penis—
does that make me a man?
I have broad shoulders, muscular biceps and my legs and mind are strong too. I’m a big guy.
Is that what makes you a man?
I couldn’t even fucking hang up some mother fucking curtains.
How can I be a man? I know I could have, but I didn’t.
Thanks, Dad. Thanks for driving all the way over here and not making me feel like a loser.
And I don’t mean that sarcastically—you didn’t. You were happy to help.
But I’m thirty-three fucking years old. What am I going to do when you’re gone?
How will I answer my own daughter’s phone call someday and say,
“Yes, Honey, I can help you put up curtains”?
I look in the mirror and I see a male. But am I a man?
I can add two and two and make four. I know that 72,568 plus 86,725 is more than 90,000.
I can string words together into sentences too. I could put this word after that (This)- See, I did that.
I know how to write, and I know how to be patient.
But how can I be a father when being a father means being a man,
and I don’t even know what the fuck that is.
At least not the kind of man society tells me I should be.
I don’t like sports, okay? I don’t like watching them and I think it’s below my intelligence to do so. It’s not, trust me.
I just know I’m supposed to love them and I don’t and that
makes me feel like less of a man too.
I’d rather watch a play or hear an orchestra.
But I don’t leave my fucking house! So I don’t see much of those either.
Still, I do know this:
If being a man is being willing to hurt someone so badly to protect you, that my own family would be scared to look at me.
I am a man.
If being a man is being willing to sacrifice himself for you—
then…
I am a man.
If being a man is showing up. If being a man is putting up curtains when you need help.
Then I will learn how to do that
and I will be there every time you call.
I know I’m going to screw things up as your father.
I know I won’t always be good enough for you.
But if being a man is trying,
then yes,
I know I am a man.
