If I could change my life with anyone over a weekend, it would definitely be my father. Today I'm joining the weekend experience. Here's the original post by @galenkp if you'd like to join before the weekend ends:

@galenkp/weekend engagement topics week 280

My father is 83 years old, and sometimes I look back on his life and think how lucky he is; he doesn't suffer from serious illnesses, he's surrounded by people who care deeply about him, and he's had a long life.

However, I know his path hasn't been easy. His childhood and adolescence were twice as difficult as I can imagine, and his old age was marked by hyperinflation and economic instability. Since he was 10, work has been his constant companion. Despite everything, life, on the whole, has been good to him. Or at least, that's how I see it from the outside. But why would I trade places with him for a weekend? My father is always on the lookout for a situation that bothers him, and his temper flares constantly. I wish I had a magic wand to see him happy, carefree, at peace.

I've learned, the hard way, that I should let him go through the motions. When whatever's bothering him is finally resolved, I always tell him:

Well, Dad, it's settled now. May God calm your heart.

However, it's as if one worry immediately gives way to another. He's always on alert

My Weekend in His Shoes

During that weekend when I would be him, I wouldn't be looking to live great adventures or take advantage of his body to do things he doesn't do. My mission would be much simpler and, at the same time, more complex: to understand.

I would like to access his memory, not to invade his privacy, but to feel what he felt. I would like to experience the mark left on his soul by that childhood full of deprivation, by having to become an adult at 10 years old.

I would like to understand the fear that hyperinflation must have burned into his psyche, that feeling that everything he'd built could vanish in an instant. Although we all experienced it, that was the moment when his work practically ceased to bear fruit. Dad was a car bodyworker and painter all his life, but since then there has been no more employment in that field in the country.

By living in his mind, perhaps I would understand why, after 83 years of overcoming obstacles, his nervous system still insists on being on guard.

Is it the ingrained habit of fighting, so deep that he no longer knows how to turn it off? Why, after so much, can't he just sit back and accept that things always find a way to work out in the end?

I would see the world through his eyes; a place where work is not just an activity, but a pillar of identity and security. I would understand why doing nothing generates so much anxiety; because for him, stillness is not peace, it is vulnerability.

The True Goal: Finding His Peace

At the end of those two days, I wouldn't seek to cure him or change his essence. My only selfish desire would be to find, somewhere within him, a moment of genuine and complete happiness.

That tranquil happiness that comes from feeling safe and at peace. I feel as though I'm leaving this world without having felt that calm in his hands, always busy, always a little tense.

Perhaps, as a wise friend of his told me:

Let him be that way, that's what keeps him going

Perhaps he's right. His alertness is the shield that has protected him all his life, the energy that has kept him going. Perhaps my anguish stems from my own desire to see him relaxed, according to my own concept of peace.

Upon returning to my body, I wouldn't have a magic wand, but I would have something more valuable: understanding. I would no longer see his anxiety as a problem to be solved, but as the testimony of a life of resilience. I would embrace him not to calm his storm, but to accompany him through it, accepting that his constant struggle is, ironically, what has made him the strong and admirable man he is today.

I see him, I accept him, and I honor him. But I want to see him laugh out loud and be happy.