birthdays...

oddly enough, i don't really remember a great birthday. maybe that's what happens when your parents conspire to conceive you with the timing of the eventual birth being two days before christmas. as a matter of fact, i remember very few birthdays at all...

there was the pizza hut party when i was three. which must have been fun. i mean, the pictures - my only real memory of the occasion - point to a great time. and then there was...

oh yeah. there was my 16th birthday. memorable for a couple reasons. i really wanted a car, just like all other 16 year olds. and i really wanted my driver's license - again, just like all other 16 year olds. but, see, i was the oldest of six in a fairly conservative family. and for my "car" birthday what did i get? i got a dresser. five drawers of oak bliss (which, incidentally, i still own). not the ideal gift for a hormonal teenager, however. and that driver's licence. yeah - that didn't happen for another three months. oldest-kid growing pains...

then there was my 21st birthday. actually the most memorable of all. i was home from college. it was two nights before christmas - just like it is every year. my dad had me go to the liquor store and get beer. and my parents invited three of my closest high school friends over. we talked. it was actually a really good night. but that was it for 21...

the only other birthday i remember is 28. i'd just met the ex-wife a couple months before and she was leaving for two weeks the next day. so we got a hotel room near the airport and swam in the vacant pool. good night. early morning...

why do i bring up the birthdays - or lack thereof - in my life? partly because ian just had his second, and i don't ever want him to think that his birthday isn't a day to celebrate him. and because through all that i've been through recently, i understand that we all need to be celebrated sometimes. we all need to feel like the most important person in someone's world - if only for just a day. heck - it doesn't even have to be a birthday... and maybe the best way of showing a person their impact on our own life is to celebrate them unexpectedly?

i imagine that would be a really good day. maybe one day i'll get to find out...

it doesn't take much to cheer me up...

take, for example, my son, the towel he wandered around with at his birthday party, and his cousins who just cannot wait to get their hands on that blue frosting...

some days...

no doubt about it - some days are worse than others...

some days, the feelings of inadequacy are heightened to the extreme. some days its hard to see your shadow on the sidewalk, feeling the emptiness of that shell, expecting it to fall in a heap now that the backbone has been stripped by her cheating and her falling out of love...

some days, the weight of life seems too much to bear. some days, the decisions to make are overwhelming, the hope that propels the heart slowing to a creep...

some days, you wonder how life could have taken these turns. this wasn't the way it was supposed to be...

some days the light seems to not shine, only reflections of what was or what could be glancing off the windows to yesterday and tomorrow...

on those days, perhaps unrealistic expectations are laid on those parts of life that are real and good. the comfort of a smile from a best friend. the late night phone call with the one true love. the excited sprint of the perfect little boy. these are the things that i crave - that my deflated soul needs - on days like today...

two years old and starting from scratch

today is my son's second birthday. big day for him - he doubled his age for the only time in his life. big day for me - a single dad raising an amazing little boy with a spirited and stubborn mind of his own. he's two. and we're starting from scratch...

today we went to the zoo. my son and i, for his birthday. ian saw elephants. and penguins. he saw beautifully colored birds that flew close enough to his head to brush his hair. and mountain goats so far away as to appear as stones on a rocky slope. he saw a matronly gorilla with her weeks-old baby and a hippo with its teenage child. he saw sea lions and penguins playfully swimming and lions and zebras basking in the sun.

today marks a new day in my life, too. it marks the first milestone in ian's life since his mom and i split up. it's a bittersweet day, because it begins a new year for our son, but a year that is defined by mom or dad rather than mom and dad. and while this is the right thing for all of us, i never wanted my son to go through what i've known for my entire life...

after the zoo, i took ian to pick out his birthday present. he slept in the car, and in my arms as i extracted him from the car seat. but as soon as we stepped into the store he was as alert as he's ever been. at first he gravitated to the hula hoops (not quite hippy enough yet, kiddo), and then it was the sandbox toys. but ultimately he chose a bright red fire truck. with an operable ladder and self-propulsion. he loves that fire truck. its his new favorite toy. at least until tomorrow...

as for today, this is our new start. a year of changes - some will be big, some will be small. but all will impact the lives of these two boys. navigating through this new year that defines us both. starting from scratch...