FATHERHOOD AHEAD.
I have struggled to come up with much new to post over the last couple months because all I've been able to think about was the one thing I couldn't actually write about––BABY. In fact, as I write this, we are still two weeks away from telling anyone––two weeks away from the end of the first trimester––but I had to get it out of my system.My own father was such a unique figure in my life. I have never viewed anyone with the same reverential awe that I viewed my father (save for my mother, of course, who received the maternal version of said awe). But around Christmas this year, I will become that figure, enigmatic to my child, yet still somewhat a child himself. I will become the voice of authority and reason and rule. Me, a Libra.In my child's childhood recollection will be his or her father somewhere in the cloudiness, doing whatever it was that defined them as "daddy" or "papa" or "dad" or "Pa"––whichever gets chosen. For me, when I travel back to my childhood, I see my father playing guitar. It's not the only thing he did, but if you were to ask me to draw a picture of my father at forty, he would be holding a guitar in his office, shirtless. I also see my father studying, reading, or talking too loudly at the movies. I remember how he once told me "You're old much longer than you're young," nudging me to take advantage of it, and the next fall I was living in New York City, getting everything I could from my youth. Then later living on a farm, meeting my wife. My father had a profound effect on my life, and in a few months time I will begin to have that same effect on my own child.Soon I will be elevated to the position my father's in now, like many boys before me, and my father will soon be a grandfather, like many boys before him. I can hear it when we talk that he's extremely excited, and I'm excited for him. For us. For everything. As overwhelming as it feels to consider my potential influence over my child, influencing him or her is part of it. I love my father with a love reserved only for fathers, thus I look forward to being that for my son or daughter and doing everything I can to be a good figure amongst his or her childhood memories, writing, playing guitar, and probably talking too loudly at movies. Part of me is definitely intimidated, nervous I won't do a good job, but the rest of me is celebrating too loudly to care.- Jesse.
