"Worth the Ride"

(With all due respect to twitterheads and Dickens; sometimes the best way to organize your thoughts is to put them on paper, write them down, not for popularity or for cash but just to get them out of your head and into a more manageable form here is that attempt.)

As I sit here typing this, I was supposed to be in Disney World with my wife for a much needed vacation, just the two of us enjoying a little adult time at the EPCOT food and wine festival and extending ourselves a waiver to enjoy a little bit of Christmas early at the Very Merry Christmas party. Obviously, that is not what is happening. As it is I'm still in Columbia, in my house catching up on the ol' DVR. Why you ask? What's the answer? One word, parenthood.

I don't use this forum often to speak about my favorite job, being a daddy, but tonight I will. It's amazing how quickly things can change; one minute you're impressed your daughter can sing, recite and actively perform the fight song, the next you're in the ICU just praying that she's going to be alright. It's scary how life changes when you have a child; you think you have the world under control, but then you realize that even though you think you know unconditional love, you think you know how to handle things, you think you can rationalize things, you don't and you can't. You must learn to balance everything. You have to be there for them, you have to combine your mind with your heart, your brains with your emotions and that, is hard.

You do everything you can to make your little monkey comfortable when she's being poked and prodded, tested and retested and you have to trust your most precious little angel to the care of others...its hard, so hard. At first you feel confused, you don't know what to do, then you feel guilty like you should have done something different, then you feel sorrow, your angel is in pain, then you feel relief and then once everything is "alright" you're so, so scared that it will all happen again.

The "ride" of parenthood is ups and downs, wins and losses, but it's a ride that you can't get off of and one that will bring you to the brink, shake you, spit you out and force you to keep on going. You think you know the risks you think you're ready to handle them and as soon as you think you have it figured out, you don't. A new curve is thrown, a new experience is had and everything is shaken.  But you, if you're lucky, get to have the best experience in the world, a second chance at holding her, another night to sing her to sleep, another time to hold her so close and be her daddy which is indeed "worth the ride."