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Dearest Mr. Silas,

Oh, how I see myself in you.

Sometimes, I am thrilled to discover our shared traits. I can see you, the future you, as the life of the party, entranced with curiosity, bitten often and hard by bouts of creativity. I see you determined and independent. A natural leader. An over-achiever. A boy who gets things done.

Still, at other times, many other times, our shared temperament both fascinates and disturbs me. You are near delirious when you are happy. Focused and pensive when you are studying. When things aren’t going your way, however, when you can’t quite figure how to do something or we pull you off of the steel track of your agenda, when you are overtired or inconvenienced, you digress into the most impressive, unrelenting fits of rage.

It’s obvious that you try to do too much while you’re awake. Now crawling and exploring, standing and stepping, biting, waving, rolling your tongue, trying to stretch the sounds in your mouth into syllables and finally, convincingly taffy-pulling them into words.

You often forget relax. Even as a newborn, you were unstoppable, Herculean in your feats. Jogging and stretching, legs flailing uncontrollably. Much like a dog dreaming about a hunt, you were forever on safari despite the obstacle of your bedriddeness.

You are, by nature, a sensitive boy. I can speculate that you will fall in love deeply, feel your soul is bigger than your skin, suffer from attempts at perfectionism. How can I guide you, safely and proudly, from shore to emotional shore, through the peaks and valleys of your sensitivity without your feeling inadequate or crazy, without tangling yourself in a self-woven web of impossible expectation?

Perhaps, I am over thinking. Perhaps I am wrong about your temperament, your independence, your impulses, and your creativity. Perhaps all babies are this way: busy, willful, bursting with excitement. Then crashing with displeasure, deep diving into inconsolable shrills and screams.

You are, thus far, an amazing and miraculous creature.

I hope you think as much when you are two, twenty, fifty-seven, eighty-five.

I hope you will be able to strike a balance, carve out an even plane, soothe the howling of your feral ego.

I hope you love yourself as much as I do.

If so, there is nothing left to hope.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Letters to my Son. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.