The other me(s)

Another performance, I mean another day out with the kids.  I am supposed to look calm, in control, even cheerful of spending this time with them.

Like a performance, it takes a couple of hours, and can leave me exhausted.   Also because I keep monitoring the kids and myself. 

I enjoy some of it.  Meeting other fathers, seeing people, feeling part of something bigger.  But I get anxious about not fitting in.

Today my daughter changed my anxiety for fun.  I was supposed to be the good dad, always taking the initiative.  Instead she just coached me to do some exercise.

So it was not the academic me, the father me, the foreign me.  It was just me.  Having fun.