Urban Village of Pasadena

I'm feeling pretty exhausted right now. I've traveled back and forth between Upland, Pasadena, Arcadia, and San Marino this past week - all to accommodate our trying to live part-time here in Upland with my parents while Glory is completing her Clinical Pastoral Education internship at Arcadia Methodist Hospital. Part of our reason for wanting to stay with them is because it's just a lot easier to be out here. My wife Glory has felt it, presumably, due to the fact that she hasn't had to concern herself with preparing meals, something which both my mother and father take care of. When we stay here my father takes a lot of initiative watching Jude, even if I'm present: he'll prepare shakes for him to drink, cut up fruit for him to snack on, and pop in cartoons for him to watch to keep him occupied. He's even begun potty-training him, something which Jude has been surprisingly amenable to. When I haven't been watching Jude here - or helping my father watch him, as the case may be - I've been attending to several responsibilities/engagements in the San Gabriel valley, which is the reason for the past few days' extensive travel.

I can't speak for Glory, or for Jude for that matter, but I've found myself torn between the life I want to live out in Pasadena with the comfort of being able to come to my immediate family here in Upland. In principle, Glory and I joined Urban Village to participate in a larger community amidst the urban isolation we were experiencing in Northwest Pasadena as a childless married couple. We thought that joining Urban Village would help alleviate that and help us get to know people who shared some of the same values we did. To some degree that's happened since we moved onto the block, but with my having to watch Jude full-time, with Glory not being around during the day, it's just felt a lot more depressing for me to watch Jude by myself. I would sometimes spend time with Becca, Sean, and Lydia (up until just recently when her family moved away) in order to give Jude an opportunity to be with other kids as well as give me some time to chat with Becca. Sometimes Monte would come over and we'd hang out with him. Just the other day we went over to McDonald's in the hope that Jude would enjoy playing in their outdoor playground. He initially didn't want to and we ended up buying something from the vegetarian restaurant just on the other side of the street. Sometimes Richie would be on his back porch and we'd chat with him. Still other times Grace would come out of her room and we'd interact with her for a while. Jude's favorite interactions have been with Sarai, our four year old housemate. He really enjoys playing with her. And the other day Jude and I both enjoyed hanging out with our old upstairs neighbor Tracy and her two daughters Ellie and Marlena. There's actually quite a lot of people for Jude to hang out with here in Pasadena.

Despite all this it still feels somewhat lonely watching him in Pasadena. And difficult. Being resistant to potty training, especially here in Pasadena, Jude has made my time more trying than I expected. Part of it may be that I haven't been able to devote my full attention to him; I notice that sometimes I think about things when I'm watching him - random things. It's very difficult for me to be fully present with him, which I'd really like to do, but don't know how. I become overwhelmed with all the things that I feel like I should be doing for him that day - in addition to potty-training, which I already mentioned, cooking meals, potty-training, taking him to neighbors' houses, helping him to experience the outdoors. All these things. But all these things I could probably bear if it weren't for the fact that it felt so lonely there.

I'm not sure where this sense of loneliness comes from. Maybe it's some type of depression I'm experiencing because of a lack of sleep. Maybe it's akin to the post-postpartum depression that women feel after having given birth, only the depression I'm feeling is not a result of Jude's being born into this world, but the result of my being thrust out into my own world of being a full-time father. Why is it that watching Jude alone has been so difficult for me? Some of it may have to do with my (many) unresolved issues with living with a father who was, for the most part, emotionally unavailable. The affection that Jude desires is difficult for me to give. Part of it is the potty-training, and part of it has to do with preparing meals for him. Both make the day a lot more complicated than I'd like it to be.

Oh, did I mention potty-training yet?