An influential professor always told me that comfort is your enemy, which is why – every once in a while – we all need to pick up a brick and toss it through one of the plate glass windows which so neatly contain our lives.
In other words, if you want to grow, you sometimes need to make uncomfortable, life-altering choices.
Like that day in college when I realized words were cool things, and perhaps I could make a living arranging them for people.
Or the decades-later realization that my clients had email addresses, so maybe I could live near a good trout stream instead of the alternate universe known as the Silicon Valley.
Then there was the afternoon I realized life with a certain woman looked a more appealing than life without her, and that it was time to make this whole thing permanent.
Every one of those decisions seemed huge at the time – and each created its fair share of anxiety – but all worked out beautifully.
Time to pick up another brick.
Soon, my wife and I are saddling up a Boeing 777 jet and flying literally halfway around the world to meet our little daughter.
Our new little daughter.
Holy shit.
I’m about to become a parent.
The New Reality
And yes, since this process began over a year ago, I have often huddled in bed at 3:30 in the morning, eyes wide open, mentally bulleting the ways I could emotionally (and physically) scar a kid already facing the challenges of adoption.
The good news? While adoption rules forbid me from posting her picture or name here, the pictures we’ve seen clearly indicate Little M (my clever code name) is cuter, smarter and just plain better than all the other kids on the planet.
In fact, it’s likely she’s a world-class athlete, a brilliant chessplayer, and a natural-born fly fisherman.
I just know it.
You can tell by looking. Plain as day.
(And yes – I already have the whole Proud Poppa thing down pat.)
The Parent Trap
I suspect I’m not entirely alone in this, but as parent-to-be, I’m already excellent at cycling between excitement and sheer terror.
One minute I’m convinced I’m going to be a great dad, teaching my daughter all the really cool, important stuff while driving her to her next athletic triumph (track/tennis/soccer/etc – I’m easy).
The next minute I imagine falling prey to one of my absent-minded fogs, forgetting to feed my daughter, wandering off, then coming home to find her swilling drain cleaner from the bottle I left on the floor next to the gasoline-soaked rags piled on the accidentally left-on stove.
Clearly, anticipation is a two-edged sword.
Stepping beyond the glass window that defines the limits of your “normal” life means picking up a brick and creating a little chaos.
You throw the brick, life changes, and then you sweep up the broken glass – and notice the view is clearer, plus you’ve got more room to grow than before.
Things may be challenging for a while, but you remember that’s the way things are supposed to be, and you can’t really complain.
I mean, it’s what you asked for when you picked up the brick in the first place.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
