Disclaimer: If only I were so lucky to own Dead Poet's Society
OKAY, SO, before the main presentation, I thought it was time for a story! I just got back from this cruise, right? And on this cruise, my friends made friends with some guys (there was tequila involved and threats of jumping off the boat...) and on like the second night (it was really the third, but this guy wasn't introduced till the second, and it was on the third that I clicked), I came to the magnificent realisation that one of my new-found friends looked like Neil-freaking-Perry! I wish this is the stage where I could tell you we shagged, and it was magical, and now we're getting married, but no go D: I did get in trouble for not talking enough though... AND HE LIVES NEAR WHERE I'M MOVING! And I'm rambling, so moving on, but if anyone would understand, it'd be you guys...
Fear can be a paralysing thing. It is something that we all grow with the knowledge of, through our parents' stories and through the portrayals of life gotten so wrong by Hollywood. I spent much of my time at Dalton paralysed by an external fear, but it was not until I became a parent that I understood just how debilitating it really is. It takes me a few seconds to gain my senses whenever I see Robbie push his limits on the swings, or whenever Julie comes running to me, scrapes on her knees, and tears falling freely from her eyes. I was paralysed by fear for several long, lonely months as my wife lay on the hospital bed that would become her deathbed.
You learn with time, how to push through the fear, however, and if how not to overcome it, than to wear it in a way which you can live with it. You learn that fear occasionally motivates you, instead of paralyses you, and you learn that it is a necessary part of life. Similarly, you become determined to never let your children bear the burden of fear that you have spent your life doing, and you set about to bring them up in the way that was right.
My biggest fear, the one that is the most paralysing of all, sometimes holding me so that I cannot even breathe, so that the sheets feel too tight across my chest, and my throat feels as if a knife is running through it, is that my children will be forced to go through what I did. That they will never really be accepted for what it is that they are, no matter how hard they try, and that when they are forced to make a choice, it will never be the right one. Even now though, I can accept that my children are nothing like me – Robbie is, well he is wild, and Julie is, even as young as she is, completely lost in a world with no interest in her. I'm not sure which one that I worry for more, but at least, with all the experience I had of handling Charlie, I know how to deal with Robbie.
I fear that Robbie will be as impressionable as Charlie was, and as determined to make a difference in a way that will only see him forgotten. I can see him, much too clearly to feel okay about it, in Charlie's position, that stupid paint across his chest – clashing horribly with his Cameron hair – and the nicknames, the righteousness, the daring. I fear that I cannot, will not teach him that there is a better way of living – a better way than Charlie's, and a better way than mine, and that he just needs to stick his head down and wade through all the crap until he is on the other side. I fear that I will not teach him that, and that I won't protect him so that he will not need to know that, but I will do my best. It is why, raising my eyes to lock on themselves on his figure, dangling from the top of the playground, the boy still in control, but only just, that I teeter forwards. "Robert Cameron, what has Daddy told you?"
Yeah, its short and rather shitty, I'm aware, but hopefully I'll be back in to fix it up some time. I'm exhausted right now, but Cameron decided to start yapping. Let me know what you think worked/ didn't though! And hopefully I'll update this one sooner rather than later.