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The Greatest Day of my Life

It has taken me a while to write on this blog but honestly, I just didn't feel like I had the words to explain what being a dad feels like. Now, it is barely past midnight on my very first Father's Day. Putting feelings into words has always been easy for me, but this one has me totally dumbfounded. On April 18, 2010, my life changed forever. I no longer live for myself. The first second I heard my daughter Hazel cry when she was born, the hair on my neck and arms stood so far up from my skin, it almost hurt. It's so crazy to say it like that but the emotion you achieve when you become a father is like none other. Your job on this planet as a father is to protect no matter what the cost. I picked her up and held her so close to my chest and told her I would never let go. She looked back with her brand new eyes, clean from the film that had glazed mine for so many years, it was clear that she saw me exactly for who I was and the innocence in her face was so over-whelming, I could just burst into joy. I was blessed with the most perfect being on Earth; an angel from somewhere better than this confused and misguided world. After all, this was the reason why I had waited for so long to have children. I didn't want to watch them fall into the same gaps I fell into in my life. Gaps that could swallow a man whole. But it seems that I reached an age where I figured out that I will never be perfect, and I will make mistakes in my life and if I wait until EVERYTHING is perfect to have children, then I will be waiting my entire life.

Truth is, you don't have to wait to have children. You don't have to wait for financial freedom, or when you have that one job that you can just set the auto-pilot and let it ride. You don't have to wait til you buy a house or have that special car you saved for years to own. You don't have to wait to be a college graduate. There is no good life, there's just life. It's amazing how fast it goes after 21. Years pass in blinks of an eye. My daughter is 2 months old as of 2 days ago and I am already petrified with fear of the day I have to send her off to college. So many things will happen before that, and it will most likely be a bumpy ride. Things are going to happen that I am not always going to be able to control and she is going to want to be free just as I did and still do to this day, but it is my goal to paint a beautiful mural for her to live in. It is possible that all of this that we call life is one grand illusion but it isn't my goal to research this for her, but my goal to make her mural as bright as it can be, as uplifting as it can be and as welcoming as it can be. A wise person has said that the universe comes from within and how you portray your life and your environment around you also controls the kinds of things that happen to you. I want my child's life to be filled with pastels and water colors from all over the spectrum. I want her to understand family life and relationships as being welcomed and embracing. I want her to understand God as her own calling for love and happiness, not someone else's interpretation of how she should see God. I want her to find this out in her own way, in her own time and on her own terms. I will never force her to believe in any certain way, but will show her there are many, many ways of looking at everything. I am so happy that we had her baptized today and I can't wait to see what kind of crazy adventures our new little family will encounter. I am 30 and my life has finally begun. I got your car seat ready, kiddo...Now hop in and let's go for a ride!

Mission Accomplished

So the second rocking chair went together so much easier. I am not sure if I was just tired or cranky or just didn't have good lighting in the garage or what but it was way easier than the first one. I guess that's how a lot of things are in life, you know? The second time, you are a pro and feel more confident and the next thing you know, you feel like you could put 5 more together in the time it took to assemble the first one. Life is like that a lot for me. I was never good at much of anything at first, but man, after I practiced for a bit, I was unbeatable. Video games seem to go that way for me. When I first buy one, it takes me a long time to get frustrated with it because it is all foreign territory. I guess I could apply this to life and say no one is good at anything right up front. People who are good at these things have been told that they were or have had to build more things in their life than others. I was always told I was good at some things and not good at other things. I have decided I don't want to do that to my child. I want her to find that stuff out for herself. I am not about to tell her she is only good at certain things versus others. She is free to be anything she wants to be and I can't wait to give her the tools to help her find her calling in life.

Bought new patio furniture tonight

I have been wanting to put new patio furniture outside on our back covered porch for quite some time. Actually, it has been since we moved in and we were going to get this set before but realized when we closed on the house that we better have some extra in the bank in case we end up needing it and let me tell you, it was a good thing we did because when you are signing your life away on those what seem like hundreds of documents when you buy a house, you never know what unexpected expense will pop up.
Well anyways, we finally decided on a couple of rocking chairs for outside and got them home and both of us worked on the assembly. Now, I am not the handiest tool in the shed and am not like most men in the fact that I cannot hammer a straight nail, more or less put a couple of rocking chairs together. Well, we continued this mess of what was eventually going to become a chair and I find myself getting really frustrated and I can't even see straight and it hits me... This is the silliest thing ever to get mad about and I am retrospectively looking at myself and thinking it is a stupid chair, why are you so mad at this? As I sit here and blog about this stupid little incident, I realize why. This is supposed to be a guy thing...I am supposed to be able to know how to put together model airplanes and work with nails and glue and engines and cars and knives and yet I realize that I don't work on any of those things. When we buy things like ceiling fans and thermostats, we always call her dad to come and help us install it. The man put my new lights on the front of my new house and crawled under the house and checked for moisture and did man stuff. What is my daughter going to call me about if she realizes that I am not handy. I want her to ask me about that kind of stuff when she is older. I want her to think her dad knows about that kind of stuff. I want her to come to me with man problems, not just the geeky computer stuff that I mainly mess with now and lately I am not even good at fixing those. Just ask my buddy, Mike.
So am I worried that I am not going to be a good Dad? Not necessarily. I am just worried that Mr. Fix-It is going to be Mr. Break-it and not know how to put it back together again if I am not careful. My wife says don't worry about it, not all men are good at that stuff. Well, maybe not but I want to learn so my daughter has a Mr. Fix-it in her life, even if he is as clumsy as Tim the Tool-man Taylor.

Let us begin...

So I am going to be a Dad. I can't even begin to say how that makes me feel. I have helped create another life, another soul, another beating heart, another human being. It truly is amazing. I know, I know... not a big deal to some but I am one of the most introspective males on the planet and this is why I have decided to keep a sort of journal on the internet. It isn't as great as writing a book but somehow seems close to the same. It isn't hard to post something online but it is hard to sell someone on publishing your book. Truth be told, there probably won't even be many readers of my little blog but this feeling I have deep inside cannot go unpublished any longer. It is unlike anything I have ever felt before. It is the most consuming feeling of unconditional love I have ever felt. It is all I can think about. I love this kid so much and I have never even met her before. I can't concentrate at school, or at work, and even the most simple tasks at home are becoming harder and harder to complete; all because of this ever-so-encompassing thought of being a father. You see, I didn't have the greatest of all upbringings and I just want to be the best father I can be. I feel like we have waited long enough to bring another person into the world but I also know that I am going to want everything to be perfect for my little girl. I am going to be the most over-protective father ever and I hope she doesn't resent me for that. I don't know how other fathers are able to finally let go and are able to allow his little girl to grow up and leave the nest. I haven't even brought her into the world yet and I am already thinking of the day I have to let her go...Wow, SLOW down...OK.
The day is almost here and I am wishing, hoping, praying, or whatever works best, that EVERYTHING in this birth goes according to plan. I want this to be as painless as possible and I just can't wait. For some reason, my intuition says you will be an Easter baby, so I guess only time will tell.

So I have never done this before...

As much time as I spend on the computer, you would think my fingerprints would be all over the web, but much to my own disappointment, I have not spent a great deal of time spilling my guts for the world to see, so I have decided to try this thing out and start talking to myself and posting it publicly for all to see. Truth be told, I have always been rather humble and try to keep to myself as much as possible but there are a great deal of things that are about to change in my life and I have decided to become more vocal about them. I will try to not make a big fuss over the same things that everyone else always complains about in blogs but I am sure that there will be a time where I just can't resist complaining.