I don’t want to Grow Up

My best friend Devin came to town for a funeral. It's sad that he had to make the trip for something sad but I was glad to see him nonetheless. Spending time with people that you only see in the rearview has a strange effect on you. Well, definitely me. I guess it could be chalked up as nostalgia? It's definitely a good thing. I've found as I've gotten older. As I've begun a family, and career. I have morphed into this other Ryan. I've had this ambivalent progression in my life. A so-called "I don't want to grow up—I want to be a Toys 'R us Kid" moment. But it's been the story of my adulthood. The fun thing is that you are impelled to do it. That noble sense of duty that overcomes you when you have your first kid, or pay your first mortgage. When you baseball cards for the Wall Street Journal. For me, life changed when my friends started to make similar changes in their lives. I don't know if it was a complete metamorphosis but I definitely detected a schism with my lifestyle and theirs. I felt like I was in this black hole, suspended in time where my life was all about wasting time. They had undergone a metamorphosis over night. I enjoyed the late nights of movies, and "war" videogames. The shared pizza tickets, and early morning breakfasts. I love the sound of the same story told over, and over again. I didn't want to give that up. But there is an undeniable force that pulls you in and makes these decisions for you.

Sometimes I try to rebel against it and stay up late. It's funny; because my body started an insurgency about midnight. It beats me to the punch most of the time. Maybe I'm getting old, or just unhealthy but at midnight my body starts to really ache. It screams and groans with every movement, and there's a constant throbbing in my joints that says---go to sleep you fool. The sad thing is that I would consider going back to that moment in my life--when my family was an extended family of friends that I have met over the years. Great, timeless friendships I've had. I've been lucky to have had every one of them. Although, I can't say that being a father and husband aren't more compelling as relationships. I will not say that I see the former as any less important.

Growing is something that we have to do. It begins, when we begin. There is no real right-of-passage. To me it's the journey. How we do it, is where the trials begin. I just wish there was compromise. Because love is transformative in nature, and it's sheer force extends countries and betrayals. How can adulthood be so daunting?

I find that it's not a conscious decision we all make that today; I relinquish these things of my childhood. It is an awareness that comes over you. Or more like the first day you realize you have hair where you haven't had it before, or don't have it. That's the mystery to all of this. Add the daily complexity of life, and the compromise seems like a bigger one by the second.

For what it's worth, I would go back if I knew that my present life was guaranteed. Yet, it's not that simple.

 

"Hang around with the people
That we used to be
We hang around on a corner
Waiting to go have a seat

And I can try
I can see
I can want it to be
I can laugh
I can feel
I can say anything that seems real
Its just like a dream
I can feel
I can laugh
I can want it to still be real
Its a dream
Ive had
Its the last
Now it seems

Now that i
I am in town
I feel fine
Fine for now
Now that i
I am in town
Now that i
I am in town"

 

Ryan Adams

The McDaniel Legacy

The past few weeks have been at an accelerated pace. One that I am ill equipped to handle efficiently, and still maintain some level of everyday normalcy. This time the whole pregnancy process has been a bit more of an impending change. Not good, or bad necessarily but life altering. With the last one, my wife and I were nervous and scared yet anxious as we've ever been about anything. I feel as if the date is almost here, and I know that we aren't quite ready nor will we be.

We go through these changes with enthusiastic rookie vigor, very idealistic and focused. Then as the dust begins to settle we regress back into the lives that we use to live. It's easy to be idealistic and principled beforehand but once you are in the present the challenges begins. It's more of an awakening in the life story of someone else. We are no longer the protagonist. We are a peripheral character. This revelation is a gradual one. One that a lot of new parents fail to accept in due time. One that doesn't come easily.

This time I'm more prepared. I understand the gravity of the situation. I'm experienced in the whole labor "coach" routine. My mind is centered and my understanding is more measured against experience. The experiences are priceless. This is what people say when they say that the most important things about life aren't the materials, or the power. It's these priceless memories--the "real" human experience.

I am so amped to go through this again. Life begins and then changes, just to begin again. I was born. I had a great childhood. I became a young man. I became a man. I became a father. I am now the head of a family. I have the beginnings of a legacy that is all my own. So whose story is it? I don't think that it really matters. What matters is that the impact that I have on the lives of my children will define me more as a man than any achievement that I attain in my professional life. All of those failed opportunities and regrets are incomparable to my opportunity to be a great father. The important part is the knowing when to accept the time for you to step back, and allow it to be their story. All the while, you are providing them the foundation for their own legacy.