Life In Transition

5 Songs

Texas Flood- Stevie Ray Vaughan
Don’t Stop Believin’-Journey
Knock The Cover Off The Ball- The Natural Soundtrack
Levon- Elton John
Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth-Primitive Radio Gods

Sitting under the California sun poolside listening to music and all of a sudden I hear Stevie singing this song and the internal video player starts flashes all sorts of wacky images.

Memories of things that I have been a part of and movie clips that I haven’t flow by and I can see John Candy dancing in the car to Ray Charles’ Mess Around.

It is hard not to laugh thinking about that scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles but in some ways it is a bittersweet moment because it hits me that life is in transition again.

Life In Transition

Some might argue that life In transition is a silly phrase because things are always changing and that this river we call life never stops moving.

That might be true but there are moments where it slows down long enough for you to take a deep breath and enjoy the moments. Slows down long enough for your children to grow roots in one place and than tell you that they will not allow you to turn the world upside down on them again.

Part of you smiles at this because you said the same thing as a kid and you know from experience that kids are often better at rolling with changes than adults but that doesn’t set your mind at ease because part of you feels guilty you haven’t been able to provide the same sort of childhood you had.

It is hard to say yours was better because your children haven’t really suffered. They have gone through some bigger changes than you did but they have also had and done more than you did at their age.

How do you measure whether that is better or worse? You can’t.

And the truth is they are well adjusted children who do well in school and have lots of friends so something must be working.

Questions Fathers Hate To Answer

Sometimes I think about questions fathers hate to answer and wonder if I should sit down and make a real list of those things. It is the sort of post that could be fun to write and something that has potential to be picked up and shared but part of me rolls my eyes at it all.

But mostly it is because there really aren’t questions I hate to answer. There are some that I don’t like very much but very few really throw me.

Granted when my almost ten year-old asked me if I knew about periods and tampons I sort of twisted in my seat for a moment. Blame that on my being caught off guard but I dealt with it.

I asked her what made her wonder about it and she told me that she heard some counselors at camp talking about who had a tampon and that made her wonder how they are shared.

That little dark eyed imp of mine smiled at me when I told her that I didn’t think you really share them and told me that even though she doesn’t need one now she probably knows more about it because she is a girl and I am not.

I looked at her and reminded her I am not her brother and that sort of talk isn’t going to work on me. She pretended not to understand what I was saying and I asked her not to try to intentionally aggravate us.

5 More Songs

Folsom Prison- Johnny Cash
Okie From Muskogee- Merle Haggard
Guitars, Cadillacs- Dwight Yoakam
Don’t Fear The Reaper- Blue Oyster Cult (I Need More Cowbell!)
Bat Out Of Hell- Meatloaf

Time is flying but summer is here and it will be another hour at least before sundown leads to the endless summer nights I loved as a youth.

For a moment I think about a girl slipping her hand into mine and walking under a moonlit beach knowing that my future was open and unlimited.

Someone jumps in the pool and a splash of water makes me focus again upon the present.

Life in transition isn’t such a bad thing and things are much better than they have been in a long time but what I recognize about the moment is I still feel like I am carrying the majority of the weight on my shoulders and it is not on my terms.

This might be the oxygen masks dropping from the ceiling moment for me. You can translate that as your flight crew instructs you to put your mask on first before taking care of those around you.

You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself first.

I don’t know exactly where this is leading but I can see a moment when I’ll sit the children down and have another conversation they might like but if it goes as I expect it will be a good thing for everyone.

Part of the joy of life is in the journey and most of the time mine has been a pretty good one.

How about you?