I Hope That You’ll Be Happy

Toby Keith is singing  I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying and I am thinking about how many of the boys have gotten divorced and remarried.

Thinking about how many weddings I was a groomsman in and wondering if the pictures of those days have been burned, given away, hidden or forgotten about.

I don’t have an opinion on what should happen with any of them because it is not my business, but a man like me is curious about anything and everything.

When I look at things I often wonder how they were built, how many pieces were needed and how many people were involved in building whatever it is I am looking at.

What kind of machining was needed, who handled the fabrication, how many salespeople were involved and how long it might have taken to take an item from concept to production.

It is interesting to me and if you catch me staring off into space I just might be lost in thought about those very things. I just might be taking the car I am staring at apart and thinking about all of the different elements that go into selling it.

I don’t know much about my father’s dating history but I suspect there weren’t many women in his life besides my mother.

Can’t tell you for certain because even though I am a very curious fellow for some reason I never needed to know more about dad and his dating.

The primary reason I figure dad didn’t date much goes back to some advice he gave me about women when I was around 20.

It was the first time I had really had my heart broken and I was just gutted by it. Dad told me a bunch of things punctuated in not so many words that eventually I needed to suck it up and remember that she could be replaced.

Looking back it is kind of funny to think about because my father would never let me leave the house for a date without telling me to remember that I have sisters and I should treat women the way I wanted my sisters treated.

I haven’t any doubt that dad meant everything and that whatever he said to me was him giving his best effort to make me feel better.

Everything he did for my sisters and I makes it clear that he is and was focused upon our well-being.

He taught me what it means to be a father and I am grateful for it all but it doesn’t mean he didn’t do things that made me promise to myself that I would never do that to my kids.

Of course back then I didn’t have a clue about how challenging parenting can be and how often we just wing it.

I Hope That You’ll Be Happy

I overheard a conversation between my daughter and her best friend about boys. I didn’t catch all of it but I heard the other girl tell my daughter that sometimes you break up by telling boys that you hope they’ll be happy.

Part of me wanted to walk into the room and tell them how disingenuous I think that line is and that when it was said to me it usually did nothing but piss me off.

I didn’t want to hear “I hope you’ll be happy.”

If we were done, well we were done and it was better not to get into all of the stuff like “I hope you’ll be happy and we can be friends kind of thing.”

But I didn’t walk in and say anything because I didn’t think there was a need to get into it now. My daughter may like to pretend she is older than she is but she definitely knows she isn’t ready to start dating.

No reason to talk about how to break up with a boy when I am not really sure what sort of guidance/advice I’ll want to give.

I need to think about it a little. Think about how I can best help my girl and hope that when the time comes she feels comfortable speaking with me about it.

I don’t know when these conversations will start any more than I know what I will say when faced with them.

I know that I’ll want to give the kids something that is helpful, comforting and useful but I can’t guarantee I’ll come up with something that is better than what my father came up with for me.

Maybe 35 years from now they’ll think about how dad was sweet but completely misguided or maybe not.

But all things move in their time and if we are smart we don’t push them faster than they need to go so I’ll wait for these moments and hope that when they come I manage the situation well enough to have been helpful.

In the interim, I am beginning to hope that whenever my daughter hits her next big milestone it will be when her mother is around.

It is not because I am unwilling to try to help because I am, but what the hell do I know about dealing with periods from anything but a man’s perspective.

I know her mom and she have already had some conversations about it so she may be prepared, more or less.

Life is nothing but interesting.