September 18, 2004
Love Song
I think for the last 10 years, maybe 12 years, I've felt like basically the same person, a guy who likes to have fun and tries to do good things. Graduating college and getting a job and then getting married made some superficial changes to my life, but I've been basically the same guy.
Then Kerry got pregnant. Even though we planned it, it brought the fear: How is this going to change us? Can we change when we need to? You spend those nine months as a father thinking, how can I be a man, a Dad, when I feel like such a boy myself.
Then Jackson was born. And nothing happened. Like I expected some kind of morphing of myself into, well, into a real adult. But it didn't. For Kerry it did. The biology and chemistry that goes into mothering is staggering. She changed a bunch, and into the most caring, loving, incredible mother I could ever imagine.. not that I'm a slouch as a Dad. And she's been a "real" adult this whole time anyway.
But tonight it hit me. Jackson is 13 months old. I'm 30. While everything about my life is going as planned and the joy of my son is unimaginable, I realize I've changed, I'm changing, getting old. Maybe it's because we were having dinner at Piccadilly, which is very much like going to a funeral because it makes you think seriously about your own mortality (I saw an old man sheepishly cutting up bites and feeding his more feeble wife). At least it made me aware, I'm not a boy anymore. I'm a man.
Anyhoo. It's not sad, or uncomfortable. It just is.
"Let us go then, you and I..."
Posted by cmwillis at September 18, 2004 9:46 PM | TrackBack