Between the Cracks

Some mornings I think I’m living twelve lives in one…and still somehow behind. Other mornings I just want to sleep through them all.

This year, the woman I made a daughter with emailed me. Said she wants our daughter to know me. But not call me father. Not until she gets her Norway passport. In two years.

I responded gently. Haven’t heard back.

I’ve only seen my daughter once. Sweden. Age 1. DNA test in-hand, waiting for results from Thailand. I flew in for 72 hours, maybe less. Now she’s almost 9. Her name’s Naya.

She was made on Koh Tao in January 2016. Born in Sweden. Lives in Norway. Has a mother from Spain and Colombia who climbs and dives and writes broken paragraphs in government forms that don’t translate grief very well. The system punished her for having a child with no Swedish father on record. Took her housing and aid away. Handed her a bill. Then did the same in Norway.

So now she waits…until a passport. Until the world decides I’m allowed to be someone. Until a stranger calls me dad.

I want to help. I want to send money. But the systems we’re trapped inside keep mutating faster than our intentions.

And it’s not just that. It’s the triplex I still own, technically. The one that’s worth $300k more than I owe. The one I nearly lost in foreclosure. The one I hold onto like it’s my last act of fatherhood, even though I’m barely allowed the title.

It hurts more to keep than to let go. But I don’t want to let go. It’s supposed to be hers. I don’t know her. But I think about her more than I say.

I wonder if she likes maps. Or water. Or waking up late. I wonder if she’d understand how someone like me loses everything twice and still builds new things in old dirt.

I don’t know how to climb out of all this. I made $37,000 last year. More than the year before. Still couldn’t beat the $3,800/month mortgage payment that almost broke me. Now the plan is over. The foreclosure is closed. But the weight didn’t lift.

And now it’s just me again, staring at options like:

• Sell the property I want to give my daughter to survive a future I haven’t earned.
• Use my Dive Master cert and become someone’s underwater tour guide.
• Get a federal student loan to fake stability through a Network Analyst certificate.
• Sell the Vanagon, or fix it and rent it out like I didn’t age ten years since that dream first started.
• Push my GIS company again, this time with help, this time for real.
• Write blog posts like this and hope someone Venmos me five bucks with a “same” in the note.

Start a climbing company in Thailand, or host illegal retreats with whispered disclaimers.

• Be the father no one officially calls a father.

I used to think I’d always be sharp. Like, no matter how broke, I’d never be dumb. But I don’t feel sharp anymore. I feel tired. Like maybe the version of me that could pull this off is somewhere underwater, asking me to come find him.

What do I do. What do I do. What do I do.