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Dad on a Lark

This is going to be a less polished column than usual, really more of a primal scream. Here it is, in plain English: I feel like a failure. Not with Larkin, not in my role as her dad. Just everywhere else in my life.

Aaaarrrrggghh!

The problem is time, time, time — the lack of it. Molly and I both work a lot, and we were already too busy before Larkin. Now, with her as our number one priority, we can't keep up. Every day I'm overwhelmed by that always-behind feeling, that running-around-like-a-chicken feeling. Which crisis is bleeding too badly to ignore? What can I let wait? What is beyond saving? Life has become a constant triage.

The list of things I don't get done is awesome. Like fixing anything. For instance: a year ago, a 4-inch end section of gutter became partly detached from the roofline below a gable. It now tilted the wrong way, so that instead of draining, it filled with water during a rainstorm, sending a cascade pounding down onto the garbage cans below. First I ignored it. Then...I moved the garbage cans. Finally, I took a rope, leaned out an upstairs window, lassoed the end of the gutter and pulled it up level. Then I closed the window on the rope to hold it.

And that's how it has stayed. For a whole year, we've been living with a taut rope sticking out our landing window. Every time I see it, I wince. There are dozens of winces like that in my life. The license plate on one of our cars is missing a screw and hanging askew. I finally got to the hardware store, but...I bought the wrong size screws. Who knows when I'll go back for the right ones? The interior of the car, meanwhile, is a disaster. Nowadays, giving someone a ride means first taking handfuls of garbage from the front seat and throwing it in back, while they politely pretend not to notice.

Our house is almost as bad. I don't know where anything is anymore. Where's that new doorbell system I bought three weeks ago? Our current doorbell is so feeble visitors sometimes have to call from the porch with their cell phones. Looks like they'd better keep them handy, because I made the mistake of putting the new doorbell down somewhere, and it disappeared into the maelstrom. It's probably in the "guest" room. In reality the guest room is our junk room, where two mornings a month we frantically stash the clutter from all the other rooms, so that our cleaning lady can do her job.

That works fine, until we have an actual guest. This happened last week. One hour before our friend was due, I steeled myself and ventured into the room. There was an ugly situation on the ceiling, where for months the paint has been peeling away, right over the bed. I'd been meaning to scrape and repaint, but now all I had time to do was pick off the peeling flakes. First, though, I had to move the bed — covered with boxes and chairs and suitcases, stacks of unread newspapers, old toys of Larkin's, shopping bags full of Christmas tree ornaments we still hadn't put away. Working like a maniac, I hurled stuff down into the basement, shoved other stuff into the closet, and managed to remove the peeling paint before our guest arrived. The ceiling looked blotched and hideous. But as least paint flakes wouldn't fall down on our friend's face in the middle of the night.

Which was good, because I can't afford to lose any friends. At this point I'm lucky to have any left. Friendships need maintenance just like cars, and I haven't changed the spark plugs on most of mine for way too long. My "For Follow Up" email box bulges with 114 flagged items, some going back months. Three are from friends who sent stories written by their teenaged kids for me to read. Because it will take me an hour, I haven't done it. Still another black mark on the neglect list.

And that's just tip of the iceberg — no, the Iceland, the Antarctica — of my failure. What about our paperwork calamity? I'm perpetually late with our bills, with our taxes. Bank statements pile up. Checkbooks go unbalanced. For months we've been driving one of our cars without the new registration sticker, because I can't find it in the mountain of stuff on (and around, and under, and behind) my desk. Does it really matter, since the license plate is going to fall off anyway, because I never got the damn screws?

How about my career, which currently consists of keeping various editors at bay, begging extensions, and occasionally stealing a few hours to claw away at fiction? Or my physical condition? I'm down to one weekly session at the gym, and my weight has ballooned. Solution? Never look in the mirror.

When it comes to cultural life, Molly and I still have a subscription to a local theater...where our two seats sit empty, show after show. Movies? Yeah, we get Netflix — and our queue has 108 films in it. (Maybe I should send one to everyone on my "For Follow Up" email list.) The problem is, our 5:15 a.m. wakeup doesn't leave much energy for night. One Sunday evening found us sitting glassy-eyed in front of TV, falling asleep in front of a Hallmark special. We had to laugh. Even Hallmark is too late for us. As for our husband-and-wife communication, well, there's not much time for that — and when we do try to talk, Larkin practices civil disobedience, making noise until we stop talking. (Sometimes she even says, "Stop talking!"). Over the breakfast table I'll babble at Molly, ranting at hyperspeed about some article in the paper. That's the sound of someone trying to shove a whole week's worth of conversation into ten minutes.

Normally, here's where I'd insert some charming and redemptive scenario from our daily life with Larkin, like those feel-good closing stories on the nightly news, calculated to show how, in the end, it's all worth it. I could cite the new ritual of the "family hug" — initiated out of nowhere by Larkin – in which she wraps one arm around Molly and the other around me, making this little group huddle out in the driveway before Molly goes to work. But my cri de Coeur is not about redemption. It's about the flip side of all the joy and delight that a child brings into your life. About failure.

Like any person my age, I've had my share of setbacks, both personal and professional. But almost always I've been able to see those as discrete events, not some abiding essence of me. There's a difference between saying "I failed" and "I am a failure." I understand it's just how life is right now. Yet it doesn't feel that way; it feels like me. Thank God I don't have any more time right now to spend thinking about it.