Infinity on It’s Side

I just tucked my seven year old in to bed for the last time. Tomorrow he will be eight. The BIG Eight. Infinity on it’s side. Earlier this evening we had all gone as a family to a fourteen year olds birthday party and it has never been more apparent to me how a few short years can make such a huge difference in my “coolness” factor.

Tonight I was definitely not cool. The adults gathered were all very nice people, and we had a really nice time. However, other than for securing their slice of cake, the teens could not have spent any less time inside the house with us.

It’s not that I blame them, because I don’t. When I was a teenager my folks were nothing short of embarrassing to me too. It’s a rite of passage I guess. It’s strange to me to look back though and realize they were close to the age I am now back then. That is most assuredly un-cool!

But tomorrow I get to be Dad to the Birthday Boy! I get to act stupid and tell fart jokes and make funny noises with my mouth. I get to act like the Pirate King and make sure all the kids eat their oranges so they don’t get scurvy. I get to grab my son and hug and kiss and tickle him and nobody will think I am strange. I get to be cool. Probably the coolest I will ever get to be in my whole life.

I want to bottle up the day before it even happens. I want to walk into the bedroom where my kids are asleep and press the giant pause button to keep them both this way for as long as possible. To turn infinity on its side and hold on to things the way they are. When I still know everything. When I am still funny. When I am still Cool.

A few weeks ago I went to lunch at school with my son. It was a “Bring Someone Special to Lunch Day” so I was honored that he asked me to go. We sat at the table with some of his classmates and their fathers or grandfathers eating cafeteria food and talking about their class. One of the dads and I even struck up a conversation as he asked me where I was from.

“Did you know my Dad is a Rock Star?” my son puffed up his chest and proudly exclaimed. “He used to play guitar and drums on records and stuff back home in L.A.” A few people glanced my way and I nodded red facedly in the affirmative. “Yeah, he’s pretty cool.”

You could say with those four words he made my entire life.

And you would be correct in saying so.

I really don’t want to keep them kids forever. At least part of me doesn’t anyway. I know there will be amazing events and conversations and first loves and sports and vacations and so much more to come. I just selfishly want to stay this “cool”. They won’t always want to impress me or do what I tell them too just because I say so. They won’t always want to do fun stuff together. I won’t always be their “Someone Special” to bring to the cafeteria for hamburgers and apple slices.

My father always tells me that being a dad is eternally practicing the art of “letting go”. As he says this he folds his arms across his chest and slowly opens them as wide as they can go. And I believe he is correct. But letting go isn’t easy at all. I have yet to come close to perfecting it, and neither has he (sorry Dad!)

It’s a tight balancing act between teaching them to be the people they want to be and smothering the crap out of them! There really is only so much in the world we can protect them from until they shove us out of their way and take off on their own. I know I did when I was a kid. You probably did too. That’s why we call it “growing up” and not “growing down”. The former not only relates to physical size, but to gaining knowledge and hopefully some wisdom as well. The latter would shove the kid back into the embryo and keeping them hidden from the world forever. And we can’t do that no matter how hard we try.

I must say at this point that I had an extremely lucky childhood. I had two parents that stayed together because they actually loved each other, not just for the sake of their children. They didn’t split up like most of my friend’s families did. My older sister and I butted heads a lot, but we had a better relationship growing up than a lot of siblings I know. Yes, my folks were protective. They were involved with our schools. My Mom even became an assistant teacher at our elementary school because she was there so much. My Dad coached my first few soccer teams even though at the time he knew nothing about the game at all. He learned it as we did.

It saddens me today to know that most people who hear those things now might find them to have been over protective. I think they just loved us and wanted to be involved in our lives. Spend time with us. Now after we became teenagers we weren’t so pleased with their involvement of course, but by that point all the other kids in the neighborhood knew our folks. They even called them Mom and Dad! They would come over sometimes to ask my parent’s advice before talking to their own parents. Sometimes they even got dating advice or help with their homework.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty damn cool. I can see myself trying to be that cool. Maybe by practicing the art of letting go, we open ourselves up to letting other people in who need us. That way we don’t really lose our eight year olds and get stuck with fourteen year olds. We keep our own loved ones close by expanding our family to bring in those that our children have chosen to be their family. Their friends.

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