You think about what you did
Wow, what a year this has been! I’m finally able to have a moment to myself to reflect on this amazing year. If the writing is a little ‘off’, I apologize. It’s been quite a while since I have done anything of consequence so I am giving it a shot.
This year began a little differently than others, being that we didn’t celebrate New Year’s Eve the night before. The wife was sick and we just stayed at home. Real exciting. Days. Weeks. Months. Time just seemed to fly by leading up to the first major event of the year. Graduation. This was a major milestone in my life as it is for so many others; my journey just took a little longer than most. After walking across that stage, a new job was imminent…or so I thought. Suffice to say I am still looking at this point, just not as hard lately.
And then my world turned upside down.
They say having a child changes you, and they would be correct. In the early days of the little guys life, our lives were tough. No sleep. Grumpiness. Arguing. Did I mention no sleep? Thankfully family was there to ease us into the transition of being responsible for a new life. Lots of screaming and crying is about all that can be said for the first few months and that is just on my part.
Fast forward to today where I am able to take some much needed “creative time” to sit and not worry about whether my son has pooped himself, spit up, or rolled off his playmat. Being creative is not something that comes easy when your child gets upset every time you turn your back on them. Not to mention that he is also the master of the power nap. Seriously, he goes all day after a couple 20 minute naps. If I could do that, I would be the most productive person in the world! I’ve tried to keep myself in the blogging/uploading spirit by working on a side blog called A Paci for Your Thoughts. I use that as a forum for anything random that might come to mind during the insanity filled days of being a stay at home dad. Mainly it has been used as a repository for images and audio updates via Soundcloud. Hopefully I will be doing more stuff with it (and this site) in the new year. Only time will tell.
As the year comes to a close tomorrow, I’ve started to look back on regrets. You can’t change the past so why worry about it? The only thing I want to do is to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them. After reading a post that Dave Delaney linked to, It really got me thinking about how I need to treasure every moment I have with my son. He’ll be driving next week and graduating college the week after, so I need to be mindful of the present and not let it slip away like I have let so many other things slip by in the past. I may be sleep deprived at 1AM in the morning feeding him a bottle, but the smile he gives me when he sees me makes it all worth it. Being able to cuddle as I rock him back to sleep; these are the moments I don’t want to miss out on. If I have learned anything this year, it’s not to take time for granted. Blink, and the moments gone.
If you take anything away from this, don’t take your time on this planet for granted. We are only here for a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, so make something of it while you are here. See you in 2012.
