Well, its the evening before the first day of the rest of my life. Tomorrow morning I officially become a "dad", after doing so (I guess) unofficially for a little over 5 years.
The proverbial myriad of emotions. Who knows why? Eager, nervous, calm...I've spent the evening being a little of all those things and more. I suppose I just want everything to go okay. I've been thinking a lot about what I'm undertaking. I really have a sense of pride, while at the same time understanding that, God forbid, if anything ever happened to Kim....all of a sudden the ball is in my court!! Holy shit! Actual parental responsibility! Do I go to a class for this? Is there a handbook? Can I at least buy a magazine with abbreviated tips? Or...should I just go by what's got me this far? Actual daily experiences with Andy & Kellie...trying to teach them what's right & what's wrong...trying to prep them for the road ahead. In other words...doing the exact same things my parents did for me.
Andy is really starting to get big and hopefully the "light is beginning to come on" as he gets ready to start high school. I hope I've made an impact on him--positively of course. Kellie is my little drama queen, and I suppose I'm especially looking forward to being her dad. Ever since the first month Kim & I began to date, and Kellie began screaming at a restaurant "I want a daddy!" I've been waiting for this day. Actually, I've been waiting for longer than that. Actually I've been waiting for the opportunity to be dad to a little girl since the spring of 1986, when I seperated from the former Mrs. Me # 1. It was at that time that I waved goodbye to someone very special and important in my life. No, not my ex-wife. But what made it especially hard was saying goodbye to my stepdaughter, who at the time was around 2 years old and truly the light of my life. Over the course of the last 18 years I've thought about her a lot...wondering how she is, where she is...what kind of person has she become? How would she be different if her mother and I had remained married? How did I walk away from her without fighting more? How did I allow her mother to just tell me "you can't see her anymore"? And now, 18 years after that she looms in the back of head....like the proverbial "splinter in the mind's eye". So I've waited, and hoped....and finally...after blowing my chance to be the dad to a little girl all those years ago...I get a 2nd chance. I actually talked about this with Kellie one night when we were driving....I told her about that little girl all those years ago and the hole it left inside of me, and how I hoped I wouldn't blow this chance I had been given. She looked at me and said:
"I don't think you'll blow it this time."
I'm looking forward to being her dad. To being Andy's dad. To being "a dad".
Time once again to get back to my top 10 movie choices....I hope you've been following along at home...but if you haven't been....here's the list so far:
10) The Shawshank Redemption
9) Rear Window
8) The Outlaw Josey Wales---now here we have one of the quintessential "guy movies" of the last couple of decades. Clint Eastwood had made his series of "spaghetti westerns" in the late 60's & early 70's and with this effort returned to the western genre with a tale of a Missouri farmer who's family is brutally murdered by a roving gang of Union soldiers. Besides the fact that its a great story, wonderfully told....what most guys will love about the movie is that there are probably more great lines in this movie than you'll find in 10 other great movies.
"I guess you'd be the hired killer."
"Man's gotta make a living..."
"Dieing ain't much of a living....boy."
"We gonna bury 'em Josey?"
"Nope...buzzards gotta eat...same as the worms."
Just a great movie about revenge and whether gaining that revenge can really give you the satisfaction you search for. A great, great western. *****
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