This is the first website post I have done in over 2 years. I have had a child. I have had a divorce. I have pushed myself to the very ends of my own capacity and crawled all the way back. I have taken various pills and stabilizers for my brain chemistry. I have gained 50 pounds and lost 20 and gained 5 and lost 10. I have punished myself and I have celebrated myself. I have hated myself far deeper than any other point in my life and in the wake of that hatred found new respect and love for myself. I’ve been through a self-created Hell and back again. And the final product of this machine, this process of a life being manufactured, is just Me.

My son has changed me. All the ways kids are supposed to change parents. And with the divorce I have to interpret these changes alone. The only other person in the world who knows this kid and knows this life with and without this kid no longer speaks to me. And while this is not ideal this is life. So these interpretations of my son’s impact on real life have to stand as the closest thing to truth I can manage.

My job is not about ambition or challenge anymore. It is about balance and it is about money and benefits. My relationships are all subordinate and all in the context of my son. My desire to create and write and share my opinions has taken a backseat to my primary goal that is my son. And those opinions I have… they’ve all changed. While still a pessimist at the core, everyday there is a persistent hope that gnaws away at that core, replacing it with a desire to nurture. Things I never cared about before I find myself pondering or having some sort of emotional stance. Things I used to care about I can’t even muster half-hearted make-believe interest.

But that is the trick of becoming an adult, I think. That is the trade of becoming responsible enough to embrace change while being honest enough to admit it. It doesn’t happen to everyone but it can happen to anyone. There are people who were once fantastic pricks that had children got old and remained fantastic pricks.

I am scatterbrained sometimes. I lack my earlier form and flow of prose. But even though I know the Me in the mirror is not the Me I used to know, I realize he is the Me that is the concentrated form of my decisions and actions. He is the result. He is the solution to the long complicated problem of my youth. He might not know all the answers but he has some of them and is narrowing the focus of the remaining questions to the things that matter.