We're In No Hurry

This is allllllright....

Feeds aren’t always fun, especially the ones that occur before the sun makes its debut. For me, I silently wish life had a fast-forward button for such moments. Fidgeting, fussing, and general non-eating can occur while your bed waits empty and desirous of weight. 

Recently I found myself with Logan, our eldest twin, on my torso taking in nourishment. This wasn’t a late-night feed. Just your run-of-the-mill weekend morning feed. None-the-less, I had plans of goofing off on Facebook or some other non-baby endeavor. As the feed progressed, my mind focused on why I was so anxious to get done with this. What could possibly be more important at this moment than providing this little boy with a meal?  This is what I signed up for. This is what Jess and I wanted for so long and now, in the middle of it, I wanted nothing to do with this task. 

Once you get comfortable with the assurance that you are indeed a parent, you find yourself slowly, subtly bitching internally. Perhaps the extra work twins require make it even more taxing. But the fact of the matter is, we always wished for twins, despite how much harder it would be. I’ve battled selfishness in my life, and here it was creeping up on me again. I appeared helpless to resist.

What began as an annoying feed morphed into introspection.  I looked at the kind of person I am, and the kind of person I used to be. If I’m being totally up front, I’ll say that I’m not particularly proud of where my head, heart, and actions used to be: closed-minded, self-centered, utterly devoid of a sense of responsibility.  But more to the heart of the matter, I knew all these things and hated myself for it. I spent a lot of years being absolutely miserable. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for me. I would never find someone, let alone be a dad. Not that I had anything to offer a child other than my own fears and insecurities.

 I don’t think I was never a raging jerk, but I just didn’t have enough love for myself to ever be able to care for another. And with that kind of mindset, I lived my life in a way that makes me shudder today. Luckily, I got a few things turned around in my life before I met Jess, and worked a few more things out with her.

Then it sort-of hit me all of a sudden. Yeah, I know how cliché it sounds, and if these were someone else’s words, I’d probably chalk the “light-bulb-over-the-head” bit up as hack. But, I’m telling you it was the closest thing to an epiphany I’ve probably ever had. As I was strolling down shitty-memory lane, I realized the true beauty of being a parent is this: No matter what you were---are what you are now, for that matter---you have the chance to improve other people’s lives by raising your children the right way. By filling this little vessel with all the love, attention, and care you can, they will have the tools necessary to do great things. Nice things. Even if it’s as simple as holding the door for someone with too many groceries.  Maybe you can’t wash away your sins, but by molding them into right-living people, you can even the world  up a bit. 

And another ray of light appeared that morning: being a parent gives you the opportunity to make the world a better place by forcing you to be a better person. Having these innocent babies makes you want to be something beyond what you are. You are forced to look at how your actions impact them directly AND the environment in which they live. There have been more than a few instances since March where I’ve thought, “Is this the kind of thing I want Jackson and Logan see me do? Do I want them to do that, themselves?”

Logan had as much of his bottle as he was going to take and fell asleep perfectly on me. His legs straddled my right thigh, his stomach directly on mine, and his left ear covering my heart. We were at peace together. Why rush through this most-beautiful encounter? Fact is, life only throws a handful of amazing moments your way. Some are big and obvious like weddings, graduations, births, etc. Other times, those moments are quiet, subtle, and easily missed. Like this feed.

I sat there for an hour watching him. Every now and then he’d let out a grunt or a coo, adjusting his little body ever-so slightly. Eventually his wide eyes opened, directly looking into mine. “I need you, daddy,” his big blues seemed to say.  Then he smiled at me like just letting him lay on my chest was the best thing ever. “I need you, too buddy,” I whispered,” I need you, too.”