About Flailing My Arms
Twenty year-olds who spend all their time either in class, drinking, or pretentiously debating the nature of art are not family men. No, they’re reckless artistic caveliers, throwing caution to the wind as they jaunt from Paris to New York to Berlin to beyond, destroying the establishment and infecting the world with their brash brand of performance du fantastic…or something. These things I was sure of – the way I was sure of everything that I believed when I was just barely on this side of adolescence – but nevertheless, there I was: motionless, gasping for breath, and suddenly scared shitless upon hearing “I’m pregnant”. It was like I was the first person who’d ever heard it, and my life just got totally fucked with.
Oops, I was father.
But, three years later, now that I’m over the blinding panic, and the horrible, inescapable fear that I’d lost my youth and instantly become my parents, I’ve come to embrace my young dad-ness. I finally threw out the bullshit notion that in order to parent I had to change who I was. I found that -- in fact – I already knew all the important stuff about being a father (love, compassion, empathy, the rules to all major American sports), and everything else I could learn.
So there.
I have a holy-shit-you're-so-awesome daughter, who -- not surprisingly -- shares my obsession with anything she deems worth doing. As such, we both run around like nutcases, hell-bent on having the most fun, or getting the most Halloween candy, or rockin' out like no daddy/daughter duo has ever rocked out before.
She's Little-E. I'm Jonathon. Lady-A is the love of my life.
Every once in awhile I've figured it all out, but -- for the most part -- I'm just Flailing My Arms.
Oops, I was father.
But, three years later, now that I’m over the blinding panic, and the horrible, inescapable fear that I’d lost my youth and instantly become my parents, I’ve come to embrace my young dad-ness. I finally threw out the bullshit notion that in order to parent I had to change who I was. I found that -- in fact – I already knew all the important stuff about being a father (love, compassion, empathy, the rules to all major American sports), and everything else I could learn.
So there.
I have a holy-shit-you're-so-awesome daughter, who -- not surprisingly -- shares my obsession with anything she deems worth doing. As such, we both run around like nutcases, hell-bent on having the most fun, or getting the most Halloween candy, or rockin' out like no daddy/daughter duo has ever rocked out before.
She's Little-E. I'm Jonathon. Lady-A is the love of my life.
Every once in awhile I've figured it all out, but -- for the most part -- I'm just Flailing My Arms.
posted by Jonathon Morgan at 8:20 PM
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