What Comes After Freedom
I have been thinking a lot about something I wrote over a decade ago. It’s from a song called “To Love is to Die,” and it’s the last line in the last song on the album, so it was designed to deliver a punch.
I was not ready, no and neither were you,
but I’d trade my blank freedom and try to unlearn all I hold true
for what comes after freedom.
I wrote it about romantic love, thinking about the freedoms one must sacrifice in order to truly commit to another person and the far greater rewards that might be gained through that sacrifice; trust, constancy, family, and other gifts yet unimaginable to me, as I’d never made those sacrifices or had someone make them for me.
Well, here I am, in the place after freedom.
I came to parenthood somewhat late. Shecky is two months old and I’m about to turn 46. I had a solid 25+ year run of pursuing my dreams and desires, traveling, making things with no commercial value simply for the joy and challenge of making them. Kelly and I deliberated at length about whether or not to have kids. She had a miscarriage about five years ago and though it was an intentional pregnancy, we both found ourselves rethinking whether or not to try again. We had a great life with a good amount of freedom (pets, mortgages and wedding vows aside).
But we both also wanted to experience this big, profound part of life and I’d sort of been casting about for meaning on a greater level — in search of something beyond myself. Nothing unique in any of this, except that I was older than most first-time dads and could very rationally and convincingly tell myself, “Scott, you’ve gotten your yah-yahs out, it’s time for the next phase.”
Apparently, it didn’t matter how rational or right I’d been making that decision, it still totally decimated me when Shecky was born and all my well-considered reasons for having a kid were instantly beyond my comprehension and memory. These first couple of months have been hard. Things are DEFINITELY getting better. They have mellowed just enough for me to recall all this stuff I’m writing now; that I decided to participate in this, that my reasons were solid for making that decision and that I do, in fact, still stand by my decision, no matter how painful or hard it might be at times.
That trade that I envisioned when I wrote “To Love is to Die” — freedom in exchange for a deep, lasting romantic love — it was real and life-changing, but it was reversible. Becoming a dad is the first irreversible I’ve done in my life. It’s not enough to simply not resist this permanent sacrifice of freedom, which I sought out, signed up for, pined for in song. I need to find my way toward embracing it with gratitude.
