honestly

A number of times recently I confess my frustration about speaking freely to enquirers about this blog. Both my good woman and my daughter read it occasionally. My good woman is an intensely private person and I never name her. I hint at her name, just once, no more than that. I use my daughter’s first name once or twice.

I have not written freely of certain things and my feelings about them. Today is one of those days when I feel compromised. But I’m of a mind to let go today.

It begins with an early morning phone call to my daughter. We have had trouble catching each other lately, me interstate and she under the weather. Her second pregnancy has brought much morning sickness. More than that, in recent months her relationship with her partner has brought uncertainty and pain, the possibility of a split after seven years.

As her father I feel keenly for her. She is my daughter. Even from another city I intuit more than she knows. No, I intuit more than I let on: she knows that I know. She’s not dumb; quite the opposite. Today when we speak I am direct: I want to know how things really are.

I know she returned to her counsellor last week. Her partner was not pulling his weight either emotionally or practically in their relationship, their partnership. He has his limitations. He is given to conspiracy theories, cannot ask for help, doesn’t read social cues. I see him as at the mild end of an autism spectrum.

My daughter knows she will have to do the heavy lifting in their relationship, the intellectual work needed to sustain it. She will have to accommodate a man lacking pragmatism, flexibility, and empathy. He is a good man, principled to the point of finding it hard to get work that fits his moral schema. He’s not lazy, but his efforts and activity don’t generate an income.

I feel for my daughter. She has hard ground to hoe. And she is pregnant again. I feel joy when I hear my grand-daughter yammering away in the background, when she comes on the line and says the new words that are occupying her current thoughts. But I feel little joy recently when my daughter tells me she is pregnant again.

I console myself that she is strong and she is a survivor. She is 31 years old and wise beyond those years. She knows she cannot change her man; she can only change how she responds to what is around her. Hence, her visit to the counsellor.

As Paul Kelly says, life draws us into deeper water. My daughter will swim. I will be there as a life protector.

Rock on.