You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses.
Man, today was just one of those days, y’know? Where everything just lines up in a queue, roped off with those red-velvet detachable stands and a sign that says LINE STARTS HERE, and punches you in the stomach.
The passage above is a remnant of my late Advent discipline. I have a couple of those posts that I started and either didn’t finish, or thought I had to go too personal to feel completely comfortable posting it. Yes, I’m one of those bloggers who can’t give too much away, who leaves a lot of himself “off the page.” (Thanks, Jeanne!)
For those of you who don’t listen to anything but Morning Edition, ESPN’s flagship 6-10am radio show is called Mike & Mike in the Morning. I was listening to it a number of years ago, and the first Mike said something like, “we made the decision very early on to not talk about how sleepy we were, since we have to get up at 4 in the morning to get to the studio, five days a week. No one wants to hear us take up air time with that.” I feel the same way about this space. Whereas it’s funny to hear me rant about the perceived little injustices of life and parenthood, it’s only marginally attractive to hear me be depressive. Compared with people who can write very compellingly about their struggles with cancer or depression or divorce, my issues seem very #firstworldproblem. Or at least, I don’t want to come across as a whiner. I have few enough readers as it is….
See what I did there? I started whining about not wanting to complain. Ooh, I’m sneaky.
A couple of days ago, we got an e-mail from one of the higher-ups at the kids’ school with a list of “important dates for the 2012-13 school year.” It took me a second to realize that that list included Daughter #1′s eighth-grade graduation. I took it to the Wife, who screamed almost as loud as when D#1 caught that 37½” muskie a couple of years ago. I, on the other hand, treated the information with a tad more equanimity. I’ve become a better parent as my daughters have gotten older. When they were younger, the most common phrase out of my mouth when we were having a tête-à-tête was “Come on! You have words!” Now that my kids and I can have real conversations (they are, indeed, more verbose than I), we have a much better relationship, and I blow my stack a little less often.
I love it that my kids are getting older, and have never really had the sense that time is passing by too quickly. There are more than enough events that happen every year that to make me say, “Well, that was a big year.” I don’t wake up and say where did all the time go?
You’re welcome.
I don’t really understand parents who react with seeming horror (screaming?) to their kids’ milestones. That’s why I like the explicitly personal point of view–it helps me see things from your perspective, which you don’t think is strange at all.
I keep my screaming inside. I guess its just that time is passing too quickly while, at the same time, it seems to move at a snail’s pace. I often feel I’m not making the best use of my and that it’s slipping by and my kids are getting older and one day they’ll be gone and then what? Not that I wish they were any younger, because I’ve always enjoyed them at whatever age they’ve been but I much prefer kids who have words to use over merely changing diapers and dealing with tantrums.