I just… I fucked up. Really bad. Not like, irreversibly, but in that gut-punch way that makes you question everything you thought you were. It was ten minutes. TEN. He kept saying "snack, Dada?" and I was just… gone. Lost in the comments section, duking it out with some rando about interest rates and electoral reform, like my opinion on either of those things is going to change the goddamn world from my couch. He was tugging on my sweatpants, little fist balled around the worn fabric, and I just kept shushing him, "one sec, buddy, Dada's almost done." But I wasn't almost done. I was just getting warmed up, keyboard warrior style, convinced I was some kind of vital intellectual force, when really I was just… missing. And then he started to cry. Not a tantrum cry, just this small, tired whimper, and he went and sat by the fridge, just staring at it, like it would magically open for him. And it hit me. Like a physical blow. The stupid blue light from the phone screen reflected in his eyes, and the sheer emptiness of what I was doing, what I was prioritizing. We’re supposed to be these evolved beings, right? With our big brains and our capacity for abstract thought, for civic duty, for… whatever the hell I thought I was doing on Twitter. But in that moment, I was less capable than a damn houseplant. A houseplant would at least just BE there. Present. Not off in some digital ether, arguing with phantoms while the real, tangible, *breathing* life in front of it quietly starved for attention. Or a damn pretzel. I picked him up and he clung to me, still hiccupping, and I just kept murmuring apologies, rubbing his back. He didn't understand the words, but he understood the feeling, I hope. And I gave him the freaking apple slices he'd been asking for. We sat there, just me and him on the floor, him munching, me just… staring into space, the phone forgotten somewhere, probably still pinging with notifications from my intellectual heavyweight debate. Is this it? Is this what it means to be a modern parent? To feel this constant pull between the utterly vital and the utterly meaningless? To try and be a *person* with thoughts and opinions and a self, while also being this… endless source of snacks and comfort and unwavering presence. And sometimes, to fail spectacularly at the second part, because the first part screams so loud. God. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Just a guy, lost in the noise, letting his kid go hungry for ten minutes over some dumb internet fight. What a legacy, eh? What a fucking legacy.