So, I figured that I should let you know right off of the bat that this edition of your favorite column in the Galion Inquirer will have absolutely nothing to do with sports.
Instead, I want to take a moment to reflect on something that I hold to the utmost importance and I hope that, just maybe, you do as well…Growth!
It’s funny really, the whole idea behind growth and what it means at different stages in ones life. For example, when you’re a kid, you constantly think about how you can’t wait to grow up…You know, wear bigger clothes, do “big kid” things, all the while your parents are always saying typical parent things like, “you’ll miss being a kid” or “they grow up so fast”. But, as a kid, it seems like an eternity until you are permitted to do more “grown up things”.
Another thing that I find comical about growth is that when you’re younger, still working towards that final product of what you are physically anyways, you are constantly growing out of clothing, shoes, et all. While as a youngster it seems pretty sweet that you moved up to a shoe size 11, when you become an adult, you try not to grow out of most things like the aforementioned. That usually means, at least with clothing, that you are putting on some unwanted pounds or maybe you’ve been hitting the gym too hard. Let me tell ya’, complacency in a situation can really lead to that “dad bod” and that just sets in motion a whole gang of unwanted emotional trials and tribulations and nobody has time for any additional stress or emotional baggage.
Anyways, now that the comedic and ironic aspect of growth has been addressed, let’s get a little deeper to the heartwarming stuff courtesy of my little ones Dylan and Quinn.
Booga and Quinny-Man’s mother and step-father had a wedding to go to this past weekend which meant that yours truly got a little extra time with my two favorite tiny people. You see, I had them just last weekend but they had to go back after a short visit because Dylan was to start Kindergarten on Thursday. Yes, I’m getting there, hold tight…With it being Saturday afternoon, I could already see the difference that being in school all day had done for my daughter, as well as my son.
You could tell that Quinn, despite being the youngest and only boy out of three, missed having his sister around to get in trouble with all day. He isn’t the most independent of little men to begin with but take away his partner in crime and he, according to his mother, is a completely different dude. In the short time that they were with me, Quinny just wanted to play with his “sissy” or my girlfriend’s daughter Nautica. I found myself watching their respective interactions and thinking to myself, “this kid is going to be going to Kindergarten himself next year!” as well as “where has the time gone?” The world is moving all around him, days slip away off of the calender and he is growing more than he could even possibly understand but, aren’t we all in some way?
That brings me to my baby girl…Dylan’s mother and myself were worried about how school was going to go and, if you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Booga, you’d know why. She is, for the sake of not drawing this out too much, is a very hyper, active child. Anyways, the first two days of school couldn’t really have gone better except for one thing and it’s the one thing that any father of a little girl dreads…a boy! In her short time in the Kindergarten ranks, Dylan had somehow caught the attention of a little boy that persisted on pushing her down the slide and following her around the playground. Again, where does the time go?! I am not ready for this but, much like my daughter is doing, I must continue to grow, adapt and know that the attention of others, albeit playful, is inevitable.
So, let’s boomerang this thing and bring it back to the person that I know the most about (I think…), myself. As I grow as a writer, a father, a boyfriend, a vegetarian/part-time vegan and any other position in life that I hold, I can’t help but think that time doesn’t have to be something that just slips away. What you do with your waking hours holds the good, the bad and the everything in between but it’s how you choose to spend your waking hours that means everything! Life isn’t always unicorns and rainbows, it’s no fairy tale but it is entirely what you make it. You can sit and think that there aren’t enough hours in the day, which there usually aren’t, or you can do something today (or any day) that propels you leaps and bounds towards what you want to become because after all, what happens when something starts growing?
