I do things differently. I often find myself erratically flailing my limbs, like a bird too young to fly, trying to pull away from the earth, trying to fulfill the genetic imperative. This happens more often than not and while I may be somewhat surprised at the time it happens, I find in reflection a pattern emerges which reveals itself in the aggregate. Each turbulent event is in itself unremarkable, while the shear quantity of failures is revealing.
As an example, I drove my old truck for 296,000 miles and at the end of it's duty cycle, it was mostly blemish free. Sure, it had a few scratches, but for the most part, it was like new when it died at the age of 15 years. My new truck I have driven into the wall of the garage, ran over the curb, hit a brick wall with the fender and it only has 13000 miles on it. I don't know why I do dumb stuff. I just do.
On the other hand, I sometimes am surprised to find I have stumbled into a moment of perfect lucidity. It sneaks up on me like an earthquake. On those rare occasions, if I am sober enough, I try to capture that moment in time as a memory. It's like I hit "print screen" at that single moment. The image of course fades over time, but I know I do it from time to time and it's a beautiful thing.
Years ago, my kids were playing soccer in the local park league. If you don't know, the park league is where the kids who weren't invited to play in the club league are made to play a sport by their athletically frustrated parents. It's cute. My kids were 5 and 7 years old, they displayed no particular excess of talent in the sport, but they seemed to enjoy it at least as much as playing with the dog in the back yard. Good enough.
I remember one particular October day, it had rained all week, but on that Saturday morning the sky stopped flooding and the sun almost broke through. The kids were wearing their brightly colored t-shirts with a team logo printed on the front, shin guards strong enough to deflect bullets and soccer shoes with plastic cleats to allow them to more efficiently track grass into the living room.
My roommate and I loaded up our soccer playing spawn in the family cargo-van, then we stopped at Starbucks to get a coffee for the adults and hot chocolate for the kids. From there, its a short drive to the soccer park where some masses of somebody else's children were disappointing their parents. Our kids ran to the warm up area, met with their teammates and discussed the weighty matters that pre-teens discuss on a Saturday. Then, the games started.
As an example, I drove my old truck for 296,000 miles and at the end of it's duty cycle, it was mostly blemish free. Sure, it had a few scratches, but for the most part, it was like new when it died at the age of 15 years. My new truck I have driven into the wall of the garage, ran over the curb, hit a brick wall with the fender and it only has 13000 miles on it. I don't know why I do dumb stuff. I just do.
On the other hand, I sometimes am surprised to find I have stumbled into a moment of perfect lucidity. It sneaks up on me like an earthquake. On those rare occasions, if I am sober enough, I try to capture that moment in time as a memory. It's like I hit "print screen" at that single moment. The image of course fades over time, but I know I do it from time to time and it's a beautiful thing.
Years ago, my kids were playing soccer in the local park league. If you don't know, the park league is where the kids who weren't invited to play in the club league are made to play a sport by their athletically frustrated parents. It's cute. My kids were 5 and 7 years old, they displayed no particular excess of talent in the sport, but they seemed to enjoy it at least as much as playing with the dog in the back yard. Good enough.
I remember one particular October day, it had rained all week, but on that Saturday morning the sky stopped flooding and the sun almost broke through. The kids were wearing their brightly colored t-shirts with a team logo printed on the front, shin guards strong enough to deflect bullets and soccer shoes with plastic cleats to allow them to more efficiently track grass into the living room.
My roommate and I loaded up our soccer playing spawn in the family cargo-van, then we stopped at Starbucks to get a coffee for the adults and hot chocolate for the kids. From there, its a short drive to the soccer park where some masses of somebody else's children were disappointing their parents. Our kids ran to the warm up area, met with their teammates and discussed the weighty matters that pre-teens discuss on a Saturday. Then, the games started.
Our kids didn't score and, thankfully, they rarely touched the ball. The team wandered the field in a pack, following a ball that was kicked simultaneously by six or eight kids at a time, moving inches with each stroke.
If you have ever seen a youth soccer match, its cute. Some of the kids try really hard, but sadly, as they have no plan of action, they don't accomplish much. I have to admit, my kids did run a good bit from the van to the field because there was a long line of parents and kids at the Starbucks and we were late, but other than that, not much happened. Halftime found my youngsters sucking down water like they just ran the marathon. It was 43 degrees tops, it had rained all night and they were dying of thirst.
The other item that I feel must be discussed is the obligatory over supply of oranges at youth soccer matches. My kids would eat, under other less supervised circumstances, perhaps one orange a year. My daughter might eat two. She don't eat meat. But. However. On the other hand. At youth soccer matches, the parents must pool their money and buy oranges by the truckload because those little soccer phenoms are ravenous for oranges at halftime. The oranges are always sliced by a loving parent into perfect, kid friendly sections and all the kids scramble to grab a bucketful, biting and swallowing the juice like a lion eats an antelope.
It doesn't sound like much, but that day was a great day, I remember it still. I think I reached my pinnacle as a parent and a roommate on that day. It has been downhill since then.
It doesn't sound like much, but that day was a great day, I remember it still. I think I reached my pinnacle as a parent and a roommate on that day. It has been downhill since then.
