Who Am I?

Who am I? Seeing the places where you came from and then having to seek new employment can lead to such introspective questions. Philosophically I ask if you can justify your existence without reference to another member of your species. In Europe, I was husband to Cara; tagging along on her journey. Here I am dad to Maxwell, Zara, Brittan and Alora. Brittan is re-applying for grad school to those schools on her list that accept spring semester applicants and has been having me proofread. For Zara, Maxwell and these past few days Alora it's a more in person thing. Making meals. Picking up. Dropping off. Seeing that chores and homework are done. Providing intellectually stimulating experiences like bringing our instruments to the full moon picking party in Warner Parks. Hugs. Snuggles. Witty repore. I have four great and interesting kids. So why do I feel empty? I look at my perfect life and I feel like I'm looking at it from the outside. In a few days or weeks I'll have a new job and I can throw myself into new challenges and building new relationships. I'll finished up the draft blogs from my trip and post them. I enjoyed the new experiences. I was hoping writing about this darkness would help me find the way to the light. Did Ole do the right thing moving here? I am just living for them? Can I handle the intergenerational responsibility of carrying on the family? My divorced sister hates me. At least her daughter Lexi is a shining star. My own daughter tells me she is looking forward to having her own kids one day, but is dating a girl. Alora doesn't really like hearing about the incompatibilty of those. My own wife decided not to have any more kids with me because I'm not good enough - defective in her eyes. My brother has the youngest in our generation. A bright daughter full of excitement. He talks of having more. I'm excited for him. And a little jealous. Further out my cousins on my mother's side have made three wonderful daughters. Two have my mitochondrial DNA, because it's passed down by the mom relatively unchanged from generation to generation. On the Wogsland side my cousins don't have any kids yet, but they're both a good bit younger than me. For grandma's birthday we saw all the Fortunes - there's a bunch of them and they're growing with every generation. Nana had a brother. I never met him or his family. Pop had a sister, but she was retarded and lived in institution I was never taken to visit. She died not long ago. Further out there are more Wogslands, mostly in northern states. Some branches of the tree flower and produce great things; others whither and die. Christopher Nolan did a beautiful thing at the end of his Dark Knight trilogy. Rather than growing older and more bitter in his cave trying and failing to protect the world, Bruce gets to let go and live for himself.