When I told my wife that I was not going to write a birthday blog this year, she looked at me a bit confused, surprised even. Considering all the years and all the blogs over the past decade, of any birthday, she figured this one would have been a sure thing. “This is your first birthday where you are a dad, you must have so much to say!” I told her that, despite this milestone, I actually didn’t know what to say. There are too many unknowns, too many questions, too many thoughts and feelings and emotions that I cannot quite grasp—that I cannot yet figure out. My mind is a messy mosaic of thoughts that do not yet fit together. (Plus, the lack of sleep probably has not helped, either.) As a person who thrives on structure, routine, and perpetual learning, I have never been less sure or less certain about what any of this all means as I earnestly look into my daughter’s eyes each day.
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About two weeks ago I became a dad. It has been a whirlwind, to put it mildly. Sleepless nights. Projectile poop rockets. Constant crying—from our baby (and a little from ourselves). Shared glances of bewilderment and insecurity between my wife and I. The level of chaos has descended from pure havoc to a more, shall I say, “organized” chaos; we have settled into an uneasy rhythm with our newborn: feed, change the diaper, soothe her with some play time and then put her back to what always feels like a fragile sleep. Rinse and repeat. Rinse… and repeat.
When I think about why I did not plan on writing this year, I realized that it was because I just had too many questions—too many unfulfilled, unfiltered, and just un-figured-out thoughts to be able to put them on “paper” in a coherent way. If parenthood is the historical split of BCE and CE in one’s life, then this new phase was too close to Year 0 to make any sense of it all. It was too early; the uneasy rhythm of my monotonous days and sleepless nights, mostly filled with “tiny” questions about when to warm her milk bottle than any deep thoughts about meaningful takeaways of my life from the past year.
To be sure, some of that is my literal cognitive state, a mixture of little sleep and balance of finishing teaching three classes and supporting over 300 undergraduate students, but a lot of that is the fact I have been so deeply absorbed in the puzzle of a newborn. Despite prognostications from friends and family about how parenthood is a life-defining experience, my thoughts and emotions have been firmly planted in the mundane: how many ounces should we feed her so she sleeps? How often do we feed her? How do I burp her correctly? How do I know she burped enough at all? Which cream to use for her diaper rash? How tight should her swaddle be? Which swaddle should I even be using? How many layers to dress her? Is the amount of light affecting her sleep? How do we get to sleep more than an hour or two? She fed and has a fresh diaper, so why is she crying? My days and nights have been littered with these endless little questions: they all add to up a (seemingly) never-ending puzzle of trying to figure out the right combination that, at the end of each day, always seems just slightly misaligned and out of reach of completion.
At this early juncture, I can already see that being a parent is a never-ending brain challenge: each phase of a child a different puzzle with different needs and different physical, intellectual, and/or emotional demands. But, it is not just the child that is a puzzle, but that life itself is a puzzle. Having a child and parenting has not just been humbling, but has helped me further realize my own humility and all that I, of course, do not know. It's funny: I think the best piece of advice someone gave me—a colleague—around having a baby was to not to take too seriously any single piece of advice. It is not because any advice is mal-intentioned—and I have greatly appreciated all the very helpful tips and suggestions from family and friends—it is just that I am not sure that anything is ever fully known. Intuition and truth can be hard to pull apart and I think that is also true about life—and it is important we never forget it. It is our life puzzle to find contentment and joy within our larger search for life’s answers, but never settling for one answer seems important, too, as it is this emotional search that is the journey as well as the destination.
As I zoom out of this moment, I realize that all these little questions about how the heck to put my daughter to sleep—a daily, hour-by-hour riddle—is perhaps the greatest metaphor for life that I could ever ponder up. If we are certain about any life questions, then—I think at least—we are seeing life through a silo, trapped by our own preconditions and assumptions. How to love or how to be happy or how to live a life full of meaning are all never-ending questions that defy simple answers (if any answers exist at all)—the humility to search for these answers, while still “staying present,” is what leads to continued self-growth and self-discovery through middle age and beyond. (It admittedly can be a hard balance!) Perhaps more importantly, this search is how we connect with others in authentic ways. If we settle on how we think life should be lived or on one definition of best life practices, then we close ourselves to the mysteries of life itself and those around us who also are trying to figure it all out, too. Everyone finds joy or happiness in different ways (and so do babies, it seems!). One of my favorite parts of teaching is that, together, my students and I go on a journey, and each class and each conversation with a young person I learn a little something (and often times a lot of something!) that I did know before.
Ultimately, my foray into parenthood has been my greatest metaphor for life—a never ending quandary, trying to figure out the right combination. Each day I have been encapsulated by the mysteries of my baby: she looks up at me with her tiny eyes, without words, making faces and sounds that I do not (yet) understand. There is beauty in the unknown (albeit frustration of course!), if we allow our minds and hearts to breathe it all in. But it also the larger mysteries of life that provide beauty, too. It is like the firefly you are trying to catch: you see it in front of you and reach out to try to grasp it, but you just miss it every time. But it is that attempt that creates the adrenaline rush; it is that attempt that leads us to keep going, to keep trying, to keep growing, and to keep connecting with others who also recognize that to live life meaningfully is to continue to live life with humility and wonder. To think that we have life “all figured out” or to convince ourselves that there is one way to live, I think, is misguided. There is no perfect answer or combination—to get my baby to sleep or how to exist in this world—and that is okay. There are not supposed to be answers to something as mystical, fascinating, and infinitely exasperating as a newborn. And there are not supposed to be answers to the mysteries of life that are just as beautiful and painful (and sometimes as exasperating): love, happiness, aging, children, death, and so much more. Only guesses, estimates, hypotheses about what feels right, but no answer out of a book to tell us which path to go down or which turn to take. Taking care of babies with the humility they demand may represent a very important milestone (and another momentous chain link in life!), but the enigma that they present—and the humility they demand—is a microcosm of how we should also go about the world once we put the baby to sleep and we go about the world ourselves in our work and in our relationships.
Coming full circle, these first two weeks have been quite a challenge. There have been moments, of course, of pure bliss and euphoria, holding my beautiful baby girl with so much gratitude and awe, a “thing” that is somehow half me and half the person I love, my wife and life partner. But there are also many, many moments of deep frustration and exasperation—to put it mildly—of not having “the answers” on what to do with her. Babies have a way of humbling you, and having a newborn makes me understand less about life than I did two weeks ago, not more: more uncertain about the boundaries of happiness, more hazy about the countless machinations of love. I love my wife, my mom, my brother, my nephews, my family, my students, and, now, my daughter — and each love is so different in meaning, feeling, and consequence. I assume that I’ll never quite have these answers. There is no rulebook to sort through these different emotions—and, as I try to find some inner peace during this emotional, discordant time, I think that is alright. What has been 35 years of my life searching for more clarity on everything I know about living and existing and being, will be at least another 35 years more of searching, I hope. To be sure, I know that kindness, empathy, love, the importance of dreaming, pursuing goodness, and reflecting on grief, are all essential elements to life but that trying to find the recipe between them and how to put each in practice will always be the perpetual conundrum, easier said than done. So, too, is trying to find exactly the right bottle for my baby so that she goes to sleep without that precious milk coming back up! Because, as my aunt told me the other day, even if I think I figured out the answers with a newborn, the baby will then quickly enter a new phase and I will have a host of new questions—a cycle that never ends in each stage of their lives but in our lives, too.
So, instead of trying to “find” the perfect answers to life’s pressing questions, perhaps we should be more content not-knowing; certainly we should be searching, looking, thinking, reflecting, loving, questioning, spending as much time as possible with those who bring us joy, but not demanding or being frustrated when no answer or singular experience seems sufficient or enough. Sometimes—perhaps most times!—there are no concrete answers, and, as I am reminded of that each moment with my newborn, that is, well, okay. Taking care of my baby has taught me the ultimate life lesson: it has to be okay to not know. It has to be okay to not have the answers. It has to be okay to simply try our best, knowing that our best really can be good enough. It is what makes us human—the true reality of humanity is living in that constant grey, muddling in uncertainty of life’s larger questions as we simultaneously cherish life’s little moments like I wrote over a decade ago. As I take a deep breath and go upstairs to soothe my baby, wondering what she is thinking (and why she is crying!), I have to remind myself that it is okay to not be sure. And if you are not sure about babies—or about anything in life—well, then, I will be right there with you by your side.
(Oh, but if you do have any advice for dealing with a newborn or being a parent, please still let me know!)
