Bussola Matteo - Sleepless nights and kisses for breakfast: reflections on fatherhood

I t was January 2007, a Saturday just like today. The sky was low and full of clouds.

I was at the hospital. Seeing the doctors go by, the women in robes, the coffee machines, and the fact that I was about to become a father for the first time made me feel like I wasnt myself, like I was watching someone elses life.

It was nighttime, I was in the waiting room, and I saw no one smoking. People always smoke in the movies, I thought. But I dont. That also added to my perception of the whole scene as unreal, in slow motion, through a filter.

That filter was me. It was my old conception of myself, my old life, my old idea of everything, everything that was about to change, looming overhead like the puckered clouds outside.

Paola was calm, whereas I was like a drunk one glass short of too many. I went around in a haze, with unsteady feet and an idiotic smile that, seen from the outside, must have made me look relaxed to the point of either unconsciousness or mental impairment.

First, the nurse said eight, then nine, then ten, then eleven, then it stopped making any difference.

It was a long night, interminablein which I faced all my fears at once and all my powerlessness at once; first all the anxiety and then the adrenaline crash, releasing a joy that had been held under pressure and almost rabidly pervaded my senses.

And so now, as Im writing this, I realize that in reality I dont want to describe the situation, the terror, the strength I saw and experienced. Because its not possible or because I dont know the right way to say it. And also because these things are so personal and different for everybody; therefore, my experience would ultimately remain just that: mine.

What I actually want to saywhich is also the reason behind this journal, which Im typing quickly on my iPad while the girls are getting ready for schoolis that, in my opinion, there are two decisive moments in a mans life: theres the before, and theres the after.

The before and after arent the same for everyone. I know people for whom the after was a breakup, others for whom it was getting married. For some it was finding their dream job, for some others it was finding a job at all. For others, the after was going to Haiti with Doctors Without Borders. Once I talked to this old man who I kept just wanting to hug, and he told me what it was like after being liberated by the Americans, and how there are things that cancel out every after and blur lots of befores, that change your future forever right before your eyes.

When you become a father, your after weighs about seven and a half pounds. You can tell even from the first second that this will be a definitive after, the only thing in your life theres no turning back from. Not even if you wanted to, not even if you tried your hardestno matter what you do with your future, that after will never change.

In return, it will change you. Its already changing you; it already has, in a way you dont know how to articulate but feel in your arms and your legsa metamorphosis.

In terms of pounds, now Ive got about a hundred more. Every day I lug them to school and everywhere else I go. I move like an elephant when I used to move like a gazelle.

But the point is that the gazelle wakes up in the morning because it knows the lion is there. And the lion wakes up every morning because it knows the gazelle is there.