The part where we make the decision

"Sorry folks, the pterodactyl ride is only for children or an adult plus one child!!!"

Chapter 2


I hope if you're on chapter 2, you know I'm hoping not to be cruel with subjecting you to the minutiae of my memory.  Overarchingly, the world landscape had just as much of an effect on our decision to have kids as did anything personal, financial, or...wanting to foster pets?  I don't know...

Distractions are my nemesis.

One of my least favorite traits I can acknowledge I inherited from my mom and dad, besides the procrastination, is the inability to think in a linear fashion.  Although we had had the conversation about what having kids meant to each other when we began the next phase of our relationship, the distractions- like stressors- contributed no small part.  Ever read about stressors?   Learning about stress in a college psych class opened my mind as to how even innocuous things can affect us.  Stress isn't always just, y'know, stress.  It's the amount of energy that can be invested in an activity or anticipation of an activity.  Moving can be stressful.  First dates.  Falling in love.  Going to a BBQ.  Watching TV.  My point being, even positive things can be stressful.  So when you factor all that in, and you've been practicing avoidance for most of your adult life, the accumulation of it all has an affect. 

There is comfort in not having to think about raising a family.  About having it just be my wife and I for a change.  After all, so much had happened in a very small span of time.    Losing mom.  Karate.  Marriage.  Traveling abroad. Work changes.  The intervening years between my wife moving in and the point where we decided to have kids was in no way organic, and moreover it wasn't one where we had even a chance to sit down in talk about how each of us felt about it.  Life had just been life.   And when you feel like someone put a brick on your accelerator and you feel like things are out of your control, the last thing *I* wanted was to talk about family planning. I felt pretty devalued.  Like other people, dad's, family's...like they all had their shit together and I didn't.  And if I didn't have my shit together, what kind of life was I supposed to afford a kid? 

I woke up with one of the worst hangovers of my life on January 1st, 2017 and of course that day my wife asked if this was the year we wanted to start trying for children, even though all I wanted to do that day was either drink ice water, vomit, or sleep.  I literally...hadn't even thought about it in a long time. 2016 was such a kick in the crotch in so many ways, I felt numb to the possibility.   Except traveling was something we still loved doing together, and gave us something to look forward to.  And so when it was suggested that we make a trip to the happiest place on earth, I welcomed that particular distraction.  Welcomed it bigly.

Oh, did you think I meant Mouses, and tea cups and Space Mountains?  Oh no no no no.  No, the vacation we went on where we began attempting to pro-create in earnest?   Was to Harry Potter World!!!*  And in spite of that cloudy inexplicable fug that follows you when you have anxiety and depression- that can cloud up your day even when the bright sun is out and you're floating in an outdoor pool in March?  We decided to go for it**...

...even though I didn't think anything would come of it at the time?  And even then, I was hoping a little that it wouldn't happen at all.


Expecto Familia!

*It's...it's fucking Universal Studios Orlando, okay?  And she keeps, no...stop...she keeps saying it's Harry Potter World like it's its own park, and I had to explain that it was the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" and it was just one part of the larger park, and she admitted that she only does it to see me get so fired up.  Fired up?  I didn't think we'd spend 7 days at *one* park, and I thought we'd get Disney and the beach and Epcot and FUCK!!!

It was great though and I wouldn't trade my wife's joy for anything, although I'm able to comment that if we head back down we are, in no uncertain terms, going to by the expensive ride pass and get on the Millennium Falcon when the Star Wars park opens.  Sorry.  I meant to say STAR WARS WORLD!!!  HA!  TAKE THAT, HONEY!!!

The employee at the Jursassic Park section can suck it, tho.  That Pterodactyl Ride looked dope as all get out, and it was for kids only?  Lame-biscuit.


**I promise I won't go into sordid details with my readers.  This isn't a Penthouse Forum letter, but as I was bouncing the idea of writing this off of my wife, she started laughing and told me it was okay to add what I said after that first try.  (She actually remembers what I said.  And that, friends, is both weird and why I love her so much.)

 "I don't know if I was ready for that".