“Sorry about the mess.”

Why do we apologize for living in our homes?

“I don’t want to be in 4th grade. I don’t want to get older and be into new things. I want to grow up, but I want to stay little,” my daughter tells me at 10:10 PM. School goes back in less than a month. Another Summer down. Nine more Summers before she’s an adult. Off to conquer the world. What world will that be? God only knows. The universe only knows. I respond that she is still so young and doesn’t need to worry about this. She has so much time. She rebuts that two years goes by too fast. She’ll be in middle school and kids are different. Way different. I’m confused. Two years when I was her age felt like eternity. Is someone moving these clocks faster nowadays? Hold one second, I’m going to get my tinfoil hat.

My son tells me it’s Batman night. I am to get my Batdad shirt on, the one with the Batman symbol that has DAD written underneath it. He is to put his new Batman pajamas on, and we are going to watch Batwheels. I urge my 6-year-old son that we should watch the 1989 live-action Batman with Michael Keaton, but he says he’s not ready. I guess he is a much different child than I once was. In due time. So we get a bowl of popcorn, some blankets, his Batcave toy that has Batman standing on top, and we turn on Batwheels. He tells me, “No phone.” I take accountability for the crack device, and I throw it 10 feet from me. As we’re watching Batwheels, I look over at the mini version of myself. The TV flashes different colors of light onto his face like a strobe. He eats the popcorn with his tiny hands. I take these pictures with my mind. This is a moment in time that is rushing by like a comet. Flashes of light. Each one is a second passing. He’s older than the last. I put my arm around him and give him a kiss on his head. He still smells like a baby to me.

“Time to get ready for bed!” I shout from the bottom of the stairs. “Dad, we have a surprise for you and Mom,” my daughter responds back. I walk up the stairs frustrated they aren’t acknowledging it’s almost 9 PM and it’s time to count sheep. When I get up there, it’s like they threw a stick of dynamite and instead of rubble, it’s stuffies. “Guys, you need to get ready for bed. What are you doing up here?” I’m overwhelmed. It’s a disaster. I can hardly see the floor. I step on a marker. “Bedtime!” My daughter responds in frustration and tells me it’s family movie night. This was not planned, so no, it is not. “Downstairs. Brush your teeth. It’s bedtime.” The frustration in her voice builds, and she spurts out, “I was trying to surprise you and make you happy, but you’re not happy.” She starts to cry. I turn into asshole dad, the one who just showed them the impatient version of myself. It’s Friday night. It’s summer. Let it go, asshole. Mom comes up to see what is happening. I’m taking a long breath. “Too late for a movie, but we can watch a show.” My daughter runs downstairs for the popcorn, chips, and some lemonade mixed with water. We watch two episodes of Hannah Montana.

“Sorry about the mess.” Maybe it’s American culture, maybe it’s a human thing. We have unexpected guests over, and we say that phrase as they enter the door. Kids’ toys, forts, dolls having a picnic, all scattered around the house. “Sorry my kids live here.” I apologize you have to be in the home we live in. Why do we do this? Why do we clean before? To make them feel comfortable? To prove we aren’t slobs? Where is the line? Trying to clean where my children play feels like running in place. Unless they aren’t home or I shove the iPad in their faces, they are creating, building, and making messes.

My kids were at a week-long summer camp recently. It was Monday–Friday, 9 AM–3 PM. It was much needed for all parties to get a little Summer structure going. I was upstairs looking at the forts they built. They used everything they had and made rooms. Each room had a theme. Notes and title cards were taped onto each one. Stuffies were everywhere. My wife and I just cleared out a room where we have these bookshelves. Tons of books. We’re selling the bookshelves and building a bigger one to fit all the books we have. A couple came over to look at them and, when they entered the home, I said, “Sorry about the mess.” As I was upstairs looking at the imprint of my children’s imagination, I pictured myself as that couple. But it’s 2046. It’s just my wife and me, maybe a dog. We go over to a young couple’s house with small children. We enter and see kids’ toys everywhere. Forts, dolls, them in the thick of parenting. They say, “Sorry about the mess.” I imagined myself in that moment. I start to feel the lump in my throat. My eyes are blurry. You know that scene in Interstellar? “Don’t let me leave, Murph!” Yeah, every time I get frustrated with my children’s mess, which isn’t a mess at all. It’s their imagination in time. A short season we don’t get back. “Don’t get frustrated with them, you idiot! What do you want them to do!” Is a house to be lived in? Are the toys supposed to be played with or constantly put away?

When my daughter told me she didn’t want to grow up, I reminded her that Daddy still loves everything he did as a kid. Skateboarding, Batman, music, writing, movies, reading, and playing with them as if I am still a kid. I told her that we get older, but we don’t have to grow up. We don’t have to act like other people. We do what we want, within reason. I said this with conviction, but I too did not want her to leave this phase. I am worried about middle school. The other kids and influences. I want to bottle up Batman night forever with my son. I want to fix the part of myself that gets frustrated with the so-called mess. I want definitive answers, but that’s not part of this journey. The answer is always in front of you. Your phone 10 or more feet away. Living in the moment, watching their faces glow. “Make him stay, Murph! Make him live in the moment, Murph!”

I do wonder how in the world I will have a 10-year-old this year. A 4th grader. How I’ll be 41 next month. Forty-one years on this rock, and yet I still have that little kid inside, but now I’m responsible for my own. I’m supposed to be the one with the answers. The dad who gets frustrated with stuffies and forts. The one that doesn’t know the future of humanity and these technologies. I don’t know what the year 2046 will look like, but if I ever see a home where someone says, “Sorry for the mess,” I will shed many tears and wish I could tell just one more person that unnecessary phrase, except this time I wouldn’t be sorry.

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