Patience (yeah...)

I was driving home from work today and saw a man TOTALLY overreact to a car that had it's rear bumper (maybe) six inches over the crosswalk, trying to beat out a yellow light. The belligerent gentleman was turning left and looked like a complete fool as he inched behind Prick A and laid on his horn, cursing until the late model Tercel crept forward and onto the highway and out of his life until they possibly meet again tomorrow.

I reflected on this at the time I witnessed it, the next five minutes as I waited to enter I-71 northbound, and again as I was mowing this evening. The honking imbecile was me. Me in the morning. I like to think of myself as a morning person (I'm not). I like to be early. I like to have peace, tranquility, repose... all before the madness that is the day that lies ahead.

I like to leave for the office before 7:00. I lose my mind if I hear Matt Lauer's voice. If I'm three minutes behind, I have to follow the white Sequoia down narrow, impassable roads for seven miles. If I'm five minutes late, I have to watch junior high kids wait for the bus to come to a complete stop before exiting their house and mosey down their driveway. If I'm ten minutes late, to hell with it... the office gets donuts.

What Adam looks like in the morning...

Going home? There's this thing called "Dad Code". No commute is too long on the way home. Sometimes I wish I drove to and from Paducah. An empty bladder, beverage-in-tow, John Denver, and a scenic route... I'm fine with getting home after dusk to avoid the melee that awaits (sometimes).

Back to the lesson at hand though: patience. We all need to CTFO. For reals. There are far more pressing matters than the things that grind our gears... someone just lost a loved one, someone just ended a marriage, someone doesn't know where their next meal will come from, someone can't pay their water bill.

Julie and I learned a hard lesson in patience. We thought we'd have Reid nine months after our December wedding. SO naive. 

The original purpose of this blog was a coping mechanism for a couple struggling with infertility, or at the very least, struggling at TTC (trying to conceive). I seriously jokingly kept a running tab when we started visits to Kettering Reproductive Medicine in 2010, claiming I'd bill the fetus formerly known as 'Reggie' when he reached adulthood.

Six years later, I'm sucked away from the daily grind of a preschooler wearing at your every nerve and an infant needing your every spare second and meditating behind a lawnmower. I make a turn in my back yard tonight. I glance toward the window and see a beaming face of an almost four-year-old. "Hi Dad!", waving excitedly, crayon(s) in-hand.

My heart melts. I remember my purpose in life: lead by example, show compassion, be present, and be patient.

Parenting, marriage, adulthood - awesome. Grueling at times, but would not trade for all the fanciest ketchups... Dijon ketchups... in the world.

For all of the times I want to pull my hair out, have it surgically implanted, and pull it out again; I see my little guys reaction to SEEING HIS DAD and realize that I am his rock star and he is my groupie.