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!
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