AND THEN THE FRIGHT BEGAN

challenged myself to make simpler redesigns that match the show constraints because I often create very complex designs and I wanted to see if I could make something I liked without going too over the top!! pretty happy with these [:

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

me:

I LIED !!!! GET PRANKED

POST BELOW ME GET FUCKING WET

(Pls. Bruce having to put up with Dami’s shit is the best thing ever)

Like please. Bruce not a dad? Bruce, acting “too fatherly?” Pshh, not possible. The entirety of Batman canon would like to disagree with you. He might not know how to express his feelings all the time, but he cares deeply about each and every one of his kids, and has shown it on multiple occasions. I guess we also have to ignore that he actually legitimately has a biological child and three legally adopted children in canon.