What's Next #4

In part one, part two, and part three of this series I discussed my future after this whole staying at home thing, where I thought I would be, and where I could be headed. This post is more about what's now, what I'm doing as I transition.

It's a race car! Really!

Everyone, no matter what they do, has options before them. Sometimes we feel trapped by the life we're in, and babies can certainly do that to you. Even then, and maybe especially then, we dream about what if. It's part of being human. It starts when we're little and talk about what we're going to be when we grow up, and doesn't end until....well, it's not over in your mid 30's anyway. Even if I was working, I'd still have options and I'd still be thinking about them. Because I'm a stay at home dad, I feel like I might have even more options. Maybe. My one limitation is that I need to be here for my kids and my wife first. Everything else I'm doing must be in the background to that. Within that limitation, I also need to be present. The Buddhists have a saying, they actually have a lot of sayings, but I'll focus on this one. "When you are eating, eat." It's pretty important for parenting. When you are with your kids, be with them. Don't spend the time you have with them dreaming about doing something else, and your time away dreaming about being with them. I'm working hard at doing that in this last year with a little one around nearly full time. We do our shopping together, and we play, and we read books, and we get stuff done. We talk a lot, a whole lot, when we're together, and he asks some wonderful insightful questions for a four year old. My time with him is different because it's only him, and he's the only one that I get to do this with. All of my other children had to share me when they were four, but not him. My relationship with each of my children is different because of who they are and when they were born and a host of other factors that I can't change. What I can do is enjoy each for what they are.

This is turning into a wall of text, so click through if you want to read the rest. 



I can't ignore the fact that I have more free time this year, and I'll have more next, and I'll have even more after that. I won't deny that I'm excited either, and I do spend time planning in my head. It's exciting. It's also funny how knowing what you have to look forward to tomorrow can help you focus more on enjoying today. That's one of the reasons that I bought a new car. That sounds weird, so let me explain. After we moved south I bought a small car and started doing a form of racing called autocross. All you need to know is that's it's racing for time around a parking lot course made up of traffic cones. It's one car at a time and is exceptionally fun and safe. I loved it, it was a spectacular diversion from working, but it takes time. It basically kills a whole day and that's really hard with babies around, so I stopped. I also wanted to have a chance to drive my car on some real race tracks, fast. There are opportunities to do that outside racing which are relatively safe, but you're going faster and the chances of you turning you car into an expensive piece of abstract art are higher, though not really much higher than during rush hour. Probably. That was too expensive and risky with a pile of small children around, so I just dreamed of it until I sold the car to fund a minivan. For about a decade I dreamed of other stuff. Now I can afford the time and the expense to do some of these things again, but until yesterday I only had a truck. Today, I have a truck and a Mazda2. In a couple of weeks I'll be autocrossing again, and hopefully in the fall, I'll get out on a real actual race track. These are things I'm doing, things that make me happy. I'm not really a race car driver, but I'm much closer to being one than I was yesterday and that gives me a sense of identity outside of being a dad. It also has the effect of calming me down day to day. I can just look on the calendar and see that on March 4th I can race. It's exciting, it's certain, and it's mine.
In the past I had my welding classes. I had bicycling, and running a half marathon. Once again I have driving cars fast for fun. I've always had something, something that's mine, and it has always been important for me as a stay at home dad. In another year and a half I'll have other things to add to my list like volunteering and rebuilding the garage. All of these things have taken different amounts of time and energy away from the family and all of them have been appropriate when they were going on. What they all have in common is that they allow me to be able to focus away from my job as a parent, for at least a little while. This allows me to more fully focus as a parent when I'm here, to be present. I think that's what's really important, not only that I'm here for my kids as a stay at home dad, but that I'm actually here, and that I've found things in my life that help me accomplish that task. That's been my path so far, and it continues to be a guiding principle as I figure out what to do next.