“It’s not that I’m sick of you, per se, just that I’m kind of sick of being here with just you.”
Correct usage of the term “per se” notwithstanding it was an awkward way to open a conversation. If you follow me on Instagram or my personal Facebook page there are several locations that you will see quite regularly. One is a reservoir about a half-mile from my doorstep and the other is a river that is about a half-mile in the other direction. You can find me at one or the other pretty much every morning and any afternoon when I have my kid there’s a good chance that we’ll both be at one. If we aren’t on one of the wooded trails there is a paved path that she uses for rollerblading, scootering, skateboarding or biking.
We go enough that even though she’s not sick of me, per se, she’s wondering how old they need to be before she’s allowed to walk down there with one of her friends.
I appreciated what she was saying, both the substance and the care that she took to try not to hurt my feelings. One of her friends will hit double digits in age this month and she and the rest of the crew aren’t far behind. I like to think that there’s not going to become a time when she’s not going to want to run around the woods with her old man but I also know that I’m going to be increasingly having to compete with her friends for that time.
I also know that it’s not just a preference for their company over mine, although that’s definitely a large part of it, but a desire for independence. I don’t think she realizes that it’s always while she’s on a live zoom with her teachers but she’s old enough now to be left alone while I take those morning trail runs. She knows that as her responsibility level rises so do her freedoms.
The truth is that it won’t be anytime soon. At times we have walked from one side of the river to the other without worrying about our knees getting wet, other times I won’t even let her near its fast-moving waters.
So we compromised. One of her friends spent this past weekend here and as a way to take advantage of unseasonably nice weather and take a break from Roblox and weird anime we took a walk.
The girls would describe it as “they” took a walk. There was a guy a few dozen yards behind that yelled out when they looked to be considering climbing out onto a fallen tree overhanging the water but for the most part they were totally alone. In retrospect, the guy probably looked really suspicious.
Earning freedoms doesn’t happen all at once, it’s a dance with multiple steps forward and back. Along the way mistakes are going to be made, trusts broken, dad’s overprotective at some times and too lenient at others. It’s a good thing that she still isn’t sick of me, “per se”, because I’m going to be lurking behind these trees for a while yet.
Hopefully not too suspicious looking.
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Previously Published on Thirsty Daddy and is republished on Medium.
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