Friday, February 11, 2005
The end or the beginning?
Nicola has been referring to this weekend as our "last" because a) the baby could come at any point and b) we don't have Ella. So our last childless, carefree, do as we please weekend! Perhaps...and I can certainly understand that viewpoint. Having been through this transition once before, I can easily recall the dramatic differences between pre- and post-baby life. We will no longer be able to just walk out the door, where the only thing we need to take care of is putting the bathroom trash can on the toilet so Bailey doesn't eat used kleenex. No, it's a bit more complicated than that, with baby, diaper bag, bottles, change of clothes, car seat, etc. Won't be going to any movies, spur of the moment. Won't be going out to eat quite so easily.
It's an end to a certain stage of our lives, and that's OK. I don't want to get too hung up on that, because to spend too much time mourning that stage as it drifts away is to devote too much energy to the past and what-once-was-and-will-never-be-again. (Will Smith supports me on this, or is it the other way around. See "Oprah" transcript, circa early Feb 2005.) What's behind was great, and what's ahead is an altogether different kind of great -- joy and love like you've never felt before, daily discoveries and moments of delight, nightly challenges that make you grow and mature.
So, off we go! And I'm ready for it -- I'm ready to make mature decisions that are best for me and my family, I'm ready to balance the demands of work and home and personal, I'm ready to still find time for me and for my relationship with Nicola while still giving all I can to Lindsay (?) and Ella. I'm just ready.
I don't know if I was ready five years ago when Ella was born. I was ready to be a dad in the sense that I was there for Michelle and Ella as much as I could be -- I wasn't off at the Villa every night after work, soaking my sorrows and my paycheck. I was (and still am) an active part of Ella's upbringing, pitching in on all tasks (I did my share of diapering and feedings and late night soothing). But was I emotionally ready? I wonder...being a parent is about more than being present, and I think I'm more mature now.
I feel like I'm writing in circles here. Hmm. So what I mean, I guess, is that I feel like I'm at the right place in my life at the right time. More mature -- I don't know what that really means. I'm comfortable and at peace and at ease in giving of myself to people besides myself. There was this time, when Ella was about six months old or so, that Gene and Dave (two of my best friends, old DC roommates) came to visit us in Portland. They came out to visit pretty much every summer, once I left DC in 1996. Every summer they'd come, and we'd regress into our old DC routines: lots of drinking, staying out late, playing golf. And that was great in the pre-Ella times, but in the summer of 2000, Ella was a baby, and here I was, staying out late and drinking and fairly easily shifting my priorities to my pals, instead of my home. Nothing terrible happened -- I didn't forget Ella was in the bathtub or anything as I played video games in the living room with my friends. That visit sticks in my head, I suppose, because I think it symbolizes that I wasn't fully grown up yet. There are certainly other examples of this...ones I won't go into.
And I'm not immune to these lapses now, either. Friday of the wedding weekend this July: I play golf with three of my best friends (Gene and Dave and Dave Glenn), and afterward, we play poker at the patio table for a while, when I should have been tackling a few wedding-related items around the house. But things feel different...I trust myself to make smart choices for myself and for my family.
This weekend is the end, and it is the beginning...of an incredible experience Nicola and I will share that will only bring us closer together and will allow us to share our love with a little person who is half me and half her. How fortunate we are to have had the before, and to have the after in front of us.
It's an end to a certain stage of our lives, and that's OK. I don't want to get too hung up on that, because to spend too much time mourning that stage as it drifts away is to devote too much energy to the past and what-once-was-and-will-never-be-again. (Will Smith supports me on this, or is it the other way around. See "Oprah" transcript, circa early Feb 2005.) What's behind was great, and what's ahead is an altogether different kind of great -- joy and love like you've never felt before, daily discoveries and moments of delight, nightly challenges that make you grow and mature.
So, off we go! And I'm ready for it -- I'm ready to make mature decisions that are best for me and my family, I'm ready to balance the demands of work and home and personal, I'm ready to still find time for me and for my relationship with Nicola while still giving all I can to Lindsay (?) and Ella. I'm just ready.
I don't know if I was ready five years ago when Ella was born. I was ready to be a dad in the sense that I was there for Michelle and Ella as much as I could be -- I wasn't off at the Villa every night after work, soaking my sorrows and my paycheck. I was (and still am) an active part of Ella's upbringing, pitching in on all tasks (I did my share of diapering and feedings and late night soothing). But was I emotionally ready? I wonder...being a parent is about more than being present, and I think I'm more mature now.
I feel like I'm writing in circles here. Hmm. So what I mean, I guess, is that I feel like I'm at the right place in my life at the right time. More mature -- I don't know what that really means. I'm comfortable and at peace and at ease in giving of myself to people besides myself. There was this time, when Ella was about six months old or so, that Gene and Dave (two of my best friends, old DC roommates) came to visit us in Portland. They came out to visit pretty much every summer, once I left DC in 1996. Every summer they'd come, and we'd regress into our old DC routines: lots of drinking, staying out late, playing golf. And that was great in the pre-Ella times, but in the summer of 2000, Ella was a baby, and here I was, staying out late and drinking and fairly easily shifting my priorities to my pals, instead of my home. Nothing terrible happened -- I didn't forget Ella was in the bathtub or anything as I played video games in the living room with my friends. That visit sticks in my head, I suppose, because I think it symbolizes that I wasn't fully grown up yet. There are certainly other examples of this...ones I won't go into.
And I'm not immune to these lapses now, either. Friday of the wedding weekend this July: I play golf with three of my best friends (Gene and Dave and Dave Glenn), and afterward, we play poker at the patio table for a while, when I should have been tackling a few wedding-related items around the house. But things feel different...I trust myself to make smart choices for myself and for my family.
This weekend is the end, and it is the beginning...of an incredible experience Nicola and I will share that will only bring us closer together and will allow us to share our love with a little person who is half me and half her. How fortunate we are to have had the before, and to have the after in front of us.
// posted by Bill @ 8:16 AM 
