Month: March 2017

2 Comments Posted on fatherhood, funny, Nostalgia, People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

That Moment You See an Old Photo and Remember the More Fun (Yet Less Responsible) Version of Yourself…

Earlier this week I received a Facebook notification that someone had shared a photo of me. I immediately found this odd, since I’m typically not in photos with other people unless it’s with my wife or kids, and it was my camera being used.

Then I looked and saw it:
“A little throwback for your Monday blues…”

Jeffrey A. Smith had shared a photo he had taken of me back in August 2005, from over 11 years ago, for my “moving to Nashville” photo shoot. I was 24 years old at the time. (See left.)

I immediately responded to his comment: “I don’t remember this guy! After nearly 9 years of marriage and raising 2 kids, I am far from the confused guy wandering out of the woods, ha ha!”

There’s something naturally funny about seeing an old photo of yourself, especially when it’s shared in real time like this.

To me, what is so humorous is not the long hair, the backpacker style pullover I bought while I was living in Thailand, or the really baggy jeans.

It’s not even the (angry?) look on my face which possibly seems to indicate I’m preparing to fight for my life in a Hunger Games scenario.

Instead, it’s the obvious reminder that who I was back in 2005 at age 24 is not who I am now in 2017, just weeks away from my 36th birthday.

I have been completely rewired since the day this picture was taken.

Sure, I do have vague memories of that guy in the picture. But that’s not me. I think of him as a guy I used to know back in the 2000s.

I don’t know, maybe I was more of a fun guy back then:

No real responsibilities. No real job. No family to support. Just dreams to pursue.

And now, nearly a dozen years later, I simply can’t relate to that guy in these pictures from that day in August 2005.

I am so grateful for how far I have evolved from that guy, actually. But if it weren’t for that guy, I could have never become who I am today. He had what it took to get me to where I needed to be.

It’s strange to think that people who haven’t been around me since high school, or college, or from when I first moved to Nashville, they knew that guy… not this guy.

I don’t know for sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

But I have to assume that most of us have a similar story. I have a feeling most people can understand how an old photo brings back memories of a former version of ourselves that immediately causes us to laugh- and to be grateful that we have been blessed with enough years to move beyond who we used to be, so that we could become who we are today.

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Dear Holly: Spring Training So You Can Learn to Walk, Thanks to the Knock-Off Version of CrossFit with Big Brother and Daddy

11 months.

Dear Holly,

Now that you’re eleven months old, you love exploring your newfound mobility. You’ve mastered the art of crawling, and at this point you’re experimenting with standing.

Good thing you have your brother Jack and me to help push you to the physical limits, in our own knock-off version of Crossfit.

Each morning after Jack gets ready for school, he always asks, “Daddy, can I play with Holly?”

He starts you off by helping you ride the scooter, then helps you push the scooter, and then he has you attempt to push the scooter with him on it!

As Jack sees me loading up the car, he knows at point it’s almost time to leave, so he basically plays fetch with you; as he rolls your big pink ball from the living room to the kitchen. You joyfully crawl as hard as you can to go get the ball, before he ultimately gets there before you do and rolls it back to the other room; only for you to happily try to go try to get it again.

Finally, he jumps on the scooter and rushes towards you, pretending he’s about to run straight into you. With a big smile and a girly giggle, you flinch, as he ultimately barely touches the side of you with the scooter.

You love it.

Then when I get home in the evening, Mommy gives you to me as she works on dinner. The first thing I do with you before playing we play with any other toys, is I make you do your push-ups on the counter that separates our kitchen from our dining room.

This is something we just sort of stumbled upon a few weeks ago. I was talking to Mommy one day as she was cutting some vegetables, and you just reached out for the counter, then as if it were something you and I had already discussed, you began doing push-ups on the counter while I hold you.

I think this is your method of Spring Training to help you learn to walk. You are so eager to move up to the next mode of transportation!

Love,

Daddy

1 Comment Posted on fatherhood, parenting, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Dear Jack: You Now Volunteer to Say the Prayer before Dinner

6 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

You have made me so proud this week. Tuesday night as our family held hands at the dinner table, I was just about to pray to thank God for our food and for our family, when you stopped me:

“Daddy, can I say the prayer tonight?”

I was definitely caught off guard, but I replied without missing a beat: “Of course you can, man.”

You went straight into it…

“Thank You God for this food we eat. Thank You God for the birds that sing. Thank You God for everything.”

That instantly became one of my favorite moments of being your Daddy, so far.

I pray for your soul. I want you to truly know God and how much He loves you.

We read Bible stories together. Our family goes to church, which you always enjoy; they have a really good children’s program there.  The free donuts surely help, too…

I want you to fundamentally understand in both your head and your heart what it means to love Jesus. And I know how important it is that I lead by example.

So it really means a lot to me that with no prior discussion, with no pressure beforehand on my end, with no attempt to get you to pray before dinner, you decided on your own this is something you wanted to do.

You have also volunteered to pray for our meal for the past two nights as well.

There are so many things that go through my head when I think of all I feel responsible for in raising you.

I want to make sure you feel loved. I want to make sure you have fun. I want to make sure you get a great education. I want to make sure you’re an adventurous, yet disciplined boy.

But I especially feel responsible for you wanting to please God.

Seeing you want to pray for our family’s dinner gives me a special, priceless confirmation that I wasn’t expecting so early on.

Love,

Daddy

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I Will Die as the Most Open-Minded, Teachable Old Man You Know

Nearly 20 years ago, in May 1997, The Wallflowers released the final single from their most famous album, Bringing Down the Horse. That song, “The Difference”, has always intrigued and confused me.

The chorus is simply this:

“The only difference that I see is you are exactly the same as you used to be.”

How can the difference be that nothing has changed?

After two decades of attempting to unpack this riddle, I now believe it to mean this:

The narrator is saying that the other person was known for always evolving as a person. But now after seeing them again, the narrator has observed that person has finally reached a point of being… settled.

And that surprised the narrator. So the only difference he saw after all these years in between was that, finally, the other person remained the same since the last time he saw him.

Perhaps, there is some assumed irony in a possible role reversal: Now, the narrator has evolved as time had passed, yet the other person had not.

I feel this way about the high school version of myself. I went to school with the same 183 people for 13 years, yet I’ve been out of school for nearly 18 years.

The people I grew up with have a memory of what I was like back in the 1990s, yet there is a good chance the 2017 version of me is much different; for better or worse.

While it is very important to reach a point of stability in life, I feel it’s just as important to find ways to positively evolve despite that comfort zone.

The day I stop evolving as a human being is the day I stop being relevant. So always expect me to be in some kind of new transition that I am sorting out. Always expect a constant character arc with me. If you don’t see me going through some kind of new phase of change and growth and maturity, that’s when you should be worried about me.

It’s fundamentally important to me to be relevant, because I interpret being relevant as being alive. I feel connected to the world when I can share my current personal evolution with anyone in my society who will listen.

I suppose I will always need, and find, an audience. It’s not that I crave attention- it’s that I crave intellectual exchange and the personal growth that comes from it.

A trait of emotional intelligence is that a person embraces change instead of fears it- and is always learning, instead of thinking they already know everything.

Granted, I am not the epitome of the adage, “Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” Obviously I do not personally adopt any new ideas that are inconsistent with my moral code. Yet at the same time, I have no desire to judge other people when their personal beliefs don’t match mine. (That’s another sign of emotional intelligence.)

There’s a stereotype about men in particular, that as we get old, we get set in our ways; close-minded to new ideas. But I want the entire world to know now, that will never be me.

No, it’s not my destiny. No, I won’t ultimately became the very person I fear.

Here’s what sets me apart from me for that stubborn old man:

I find my identity in exploring new ideas. I find strength in seeing life in ways I hadn’t before. This is what has always worked for me.

So for me to become set in my ways, it’s heresy against my values.

If there’s going to be any irony with this concept, it’s that I am close-minded to being close-minded.

I will die as the most open-minded, teachable old man you know.

 

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Dear Holly: The Giant Rat Who Came to Breakfast (and the Return of the Ewok)

10 months.

Dear Holly,

Sunday morning, with Nonna and Papa in town, Mommy had made breakfast for us all. I immediately noticed that you and I had matching “bedhead” hair. The conversation topic was the fact we heard coyotes howling during the night.

Somehow, that discussion inspired me to run in my closet and pull out my “rat pack” puppet. I had bought it right before you were born, as I had planned to use it as a character on one of my children’s programs on my YouTube Channel. But I haven’t had the time to dedicate to making new episodes since you were born.

I got the hunch you would find an appreciation for who I call Magellan the Mouse.

And I was right.

At first, of course, you were skeptical of the giant rat who was apparently trying to share your Cheerios with you. You weren’t afraid of him, you just didn’t know if you were in the mood to share your food with a non-human.

You eventually warmed up to him, though. Then you weren’t so much annoyed with him, as you were just confused on his origin story.

How had you never met this friendly rodent before? After having lived on this planet for nearly a whole year now, and in our house, how does a giant rat just show up?

Why did everyone else just instantly welcome him, like we’d always known him?

But that’s how it is for you. Being the baby of the family, you’ve just learned to roll it, whatever it is… including a giant rat who wants to help you eat your cereal.

A few hours later after lunch, you were winding down, getting ready for your nap. I have no idea how my Ewok action figure from 1983 showed up with your toys, but you chose to clench it in your little hand as Mommy wrapped you up in a blanket to feed you your bottle and then to rock you to sleep.

But before you actually fell asleep, Magellan the Mouse made one more appearance. I have a feeling he’ll be sticking around.

Love,

Daddy