What happens when you run out of time?

I have a handful of things that I'm pretty good at. In a short list:

• Family man
• Software development
• Piano/Music

I'm not sure if those are in order... though I was once told that whenever you put down an unordered list... it's always ordered.

There seems to be ebbs and flows with how each of those items demand attention. In an ideal world, being a family man will always take the absolute priority... but let's be real here. Sometimes the job gets more attention because it's not mutually exclusive from being a family man. If I have a job, I get paid. If I get paid, I keep providing for my family.

Balance is hard.

A mentor of mine took two years to train me to say "no". To push back and say "I'm not going to do that" for the sake of making sure a balance is maintained enough where one thing doesn't squash the others completely.

... my spastic brain just interrupted me with a "you used to be funny. your blog sucks right now"

(not wrong, brain)

Anyway, it takes a LOT of effort for me to say no - a lot of effort for me not to run at something at 160mph and then burn myself out, hate what I'm doing, run away from it, then come back after a break. This clearly doesn't work for being a family man or a good software engineer.

Where am I going with this?

... I forgot. I gotta get back to work.

I have been vehemently against bringing a dog into our family for a long time. I always used random and very valid excuses such as “our landlord doesn’t allow it” or “the kids are too young” or “we don’t own the house”.

But now we own a house, don’t have a landlord, and my kids are plenty old enough (not that I’ll ever admit they aren’t my tiny babies)

So, of course, we now have a dog.

daww look at those ears

What’s funny about this situation is that it was me that first met the dog, first fell in love, and first raised the idea to my wife. She, wanting a dog for forever, clearly was not understanding when I started sending her pictures of this dog.

I’ll just say that owning a dog is self serving as I want to live a happier, healthier life. It’s a known fact.

(maybe it’s the repeated bending over to pick up steaming piles of poop)

One thing I did not expect was how concerned our dog was when I was not feeling the greatest last night. She kept her paw and her eye on my all night long as I was battling an insane migraine huddled under a blanket.

don’t worry dad, I’ll make you better… with millions of licks

Hey. Does anyone even read blogs anymore? It seems that there is a transition from blog format, to a quick jot of words in less than 300 characters.

There is a part of me that misses blogging about random things, but I think I haven’t done it in a while because a) it felt slightly narcissistic and b) I thought I was the only one reading it.

That was until a few days ago where someone dropped a comment to an Instragram post where she “used to read” my blog. Got me thinking, well why not start again. Maybe no one will read but it will allow me to escape reality and enter my own consciousness while spewing down words.

I should watch what I say

I like being a home-body. I also like people. It’s a weird combination where I like being alone and surrounded by people at the same time. I wish that it was the case that both provide a sort of energy for me equally, but that’s not the case. It’s more that each has it’s own special type of energy that the other recharges. So in order to have lots of energy for people, I need to recharge by being alone and in order to have lots of energy for being alone I need to be around people.

shankrabbit, that equation doesn’t work out.

No, I know it doesn't but I’m sort of messed up like that.

What it does do is it makes me get involved in a lot of activities and at the same time want to avoid said activities. But I force myself to stay involved and continue doing the activities that I’ve signed up for.

There is, however, a downside of being very involved in other people’s lives. I’ve REALLY got to watch what I say. Being cut off from the world allows you to say whatever you want, especially when it concerns communication on the internet. I think that’s part of the introvert’s addiction in the digital age. It’s a drug to remain anonymous and say whatever you want, be whoever you want to be, have multiple personalities and zero accountability. But when you’re involved directly with other people, you need to have your filter, need to be consistent, have accountability. In a way, it keeps you a “good person”.

So I’m being forced to be “good”… which is a good thing.

Hopefully I Remain Consistent

Maybe this time I’ll remain consistent in blogging… maybe not. But like life I, and I hope you, enjoy it while it lasts.

Last sunday I was sitting around with a bunch of teens from our church and discussing a million things at a million miles an hour. It’s entertaining but challenging to keep up with the randomness that engulfs the adolecent mind. It keeps you on your toes… keeps you active… keeps you aware of just how fast they can process random things and how difficult it is for them to stay on any one topic for too long.

During our discussions, one of them raised a question,

When did you become the “old guy”?

Awesome… First of all, I’m only 33. This is not what anyone would classify as “old”, second of all – I still listen to popular music, I’m on top of most to all of the trends (even if I do think some of them are stupid), and I know WAY more about the world then you do… SO GET OFF MY LAWN!!

Oh my god… I have become the old guy.

To be fair to the teen who asked me this question, I was graduating high school when he was born. I could legally smoke, drive a car, vote, and move out on my own when his poor mother was pushing him out of the womb. In perspective of his life… I’m “old”.

I think there’s a distinction between “old” as it pertains to being an adult and “old” as in, you’re over the age of 70 and your body is falling apart. I know the question was more geared towards the former and it got me thinking about when I did finally start feeling like an adult. That I will give him… I do feel like an adult now. Was it when I started my career? No… I started my career at 20 and I definitely wasn’t an adult then. Was it when I got married? No, we were just two kids married to each other at 24. Was it when I had my first child? No… I had no idea what I was doing and still felt like a kid with WAY too much responsibility. Then I figured it out…

I started feeling like an adult when the most trivial of actions had ridiculous sized consquences.

Here’s the deal – I can’t get away with anything right now. I have to watch every single action or word that comes out of my mouth because everyone will jump down my throat and punish me as hard as they can. I, by default, am a horrible person that is out to steal your wife, your money, your kids, and ruin your life.

I became old when one false step meant my life was ruined. There is no forgiveness when you’re an adult male. One wrong word and you’re fired from your job or thrown into jail. There is this bell curve of how much people scrutinize your life and it really spikes at 30.

my paint skillz are amazing

When you’re a child you can get away with so much because you’re still learning how to be an adult and when you pass by a certain older age, people just think you’re going senile and reverting to a child like state.

The other day I was talking to a teller at the bank and was being generally nice to her as I am with most humans, when this 75-ish year old guy comes in and just blurts out, “well since you’re flirting with that one, I’m going to try my luck with this cutie” as he walked up to the other female teller. And everyone there giggled. See? He can get away with that because he’s old. But if the roles were reveresed I could very possibly have a sexual assault case throw at me. One word = life ruined.

So I guess the answer is “30”. Right at 30 is when I became an old man adult because I have to be ever so careful in what I say or do. I hate being in this “bump” in the graph. Always feeling like I’m being judged and having to justify my actions stinks.

I can’t wait till i’m 80 and can cat call from my front porch when a 20 something walks by and she’ll look up and smile because it’s “so adorable”.

10 years ago today, I dropped down to one knee and took a chance. I took a chance on a girl who I had always thought was too good for me, was too out of my league, was too street smart, too beautiful, too amazing to ever be with a guy like me.

I dropped to one knee in the middle of a forest in North Carolina and struggled to get the ring out of my camera bag. She struggled to see that I was proposing to her. She thought that I had fallen or that I dropped something so she immediately tried to help me up. It took her 3 more seconds to realize what was going on.

I finally got the ring out, and asked her to marry me.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, had no idea what it was for, no idea what it really meant.

I never thought it would be this amazing.