Hindsight

This afternoon, with my wife away and busy with the womanly art of baby showers (not ours) I took my daughter to the neighborhood pool. When I arrived I realized two things: I was the oldest person there, and my daughter was the youngest. The pool, it seemed, had become overrun with teens.
Possibly some of them were twenty. Despite the fact that most, if not all of them, were drinking beer, you could tell from their smooth, innocent faces, hairless chests, fatless bodies, and just...the rebellious way that they held their drinks, that to a man they were not 21 years old. I had no problem with this, as TAE has often argued that soldiers fight and die for this country at barely 18 years old but apparently alcohol is too mature for people that age...
Nevertheless, as The Abstracted Daughter splashed merrily in the pool, I looked at the gaggle of youths and was so suddenly and richly taken back to my own youth that I felt I must record it. Forgive my retrospection.
There was one young man there at the pool: well-built, short, and obviously hypersexual, who awkwardly kept trying to hit on a girl in the group. Though lukewarm to his advances, I had to chuckle as I watched him struggle to keep her attention with bad jokes and pool antics. Frankly, he reminded me of me.
Watching him, I remembered a young me, more than a decade ago, who would work the day shift from 6:30 am til 2:30 pm at the local SuperTarget. My best friend at the time, Chad, worked with me and the moment our shift was over, we dusted out of there, hopped into our cars, and hit the local pool. Oh, how simple life was. Chad's girlfriend was a lifeguard and we got in for free. I, as a youth, was perpetually single, mostly by my own ineptitude, and I was always on the lookout. At the time, well, time seemed to fly. Those summers just went so fast, and I really didn't feel like progress was made in my life during them. Most of the money I made was secreted away for college, and most of the time I spent chasing girls evaporated into nothingness.
But looking back, I can't help but get nostalgic thinking of the purity, and the simplicity, and the wonderful happiness of those days.
So I saw these kids this afternoon, playing washers, drinking cheap beer, and flirting with each other at my local pool, and I thought, "I loved that time in my life."

To me, it seemed like the best times of your life are always viewed backwards from far beyond them. In my experience, time makes the joys more poignant, and the sorrows fade away to nothing. But I guess I remember the sorrows sometimes too. I remember one afternoon in my high school years I cried on the floor of my bedroom, weeping openly and violently, begging God, Jesus, or any supernatural beings that had spare time, to help me find a girlfriend. I laugh, in retrospect, at my immaturity, but I also laugh out of embarassment and humility. Those same feelings still arise in me, but at newer targets. It wasn't a month ago I was doing the very same thing, but instead of praying for a girlfriend, I was praying for a job.

These thoughts struck me as I went to "make an appearance" at the baby shower. Here was a stock of my acquaintances from high school, as my wife and my wife's friend both attended the same high school I did. And as I was talking to a man, whose daughter sat in front of me in calculus class my senior year, it occurred to me that we all are just living these lives with no clue what the future holds, but a clear head about what the past held. It struck me as odd that I had sat behind that man's daughter for a year of calculus, but that whole time I had never thought "10 years from now I'll be at your parents house for a baby shower hosted by my wife and your little sister."

When I got home, it had been a crummy day. My car is on its last legs, between a couple fender benders, a bad exhaust system, bad steering, poor electrical system, failed cruise control, bad alingment that wears the tires out, aggressive driving that wears the brakes out, failed air conditioning, and CV joints that need replacing, my car is a in a sad state, and has weeks, if not days, of life left. My daughter had been extremely taxing all day; she has learned what "no" means and uses the word with reckless aplomb. My wife had been very busy with baby shower planning and had not helped much with the daughter. The weather here today was stifling, muggy, and I sweat even in air conditioned rooms. I somehow injured my foot, and the pain nagged me all day, whenever I took a step. All in all, I was not having a very great day.

But when I got home from the baby shower with my daughter, and put her in her jammies, and we read a story, things started to get a little better. Then I had my daughter turn out her light, and I lay her down in bed, and gave her a blanket. I said "Goodnight honey, I love you," maybe a little more robotically than I should have. From the quiet crib, a little voice replied "yuv you."

Is there a thing more precious, more effective at thawing even the coldest hearts, more effective at cooling the hottest heads, than a daughter's love? At one point today, my daughter screamed "no daddy!" and I saw that look of hate in her eyes that I know will be back when she turns 13 or 14. But when her tiny little voice mumbled "yuv you" the whole day's crappiness somehow withered away, and all I care to remember about the entire day was that two word sentence.

Truly I tell you this: the unconditional love of a child for its parent is such a precious and wonderful thing, I cannot imagine my life without it. I cannot imagine how I got through a day like the day I had today before I had my daughter to tell me she loved me. I cannot believe that, having cussed out my car, cussed out the weather, cussed out my foot, cussed out the laundry, and cussed out bad drivers, that at the end of a day where everything I tried to do with my daughter was a battle, every time I gave her two choices she'd just scream "no!", every time I put her in her car seat she battled me, on a day when she sang through most of her nap, and got up early, on a day where all her meals were unworthy and ended up on the floor, that even through all that, her day ended with a story and love.

As soon as I closed the door to her room, I know I had to record this. I knew that although my readers probably don't give two cents about some precious garbage between me and my daughter, especially since many of my readers aren't parents themselves, that this would be a waste of other people's time. But when my daughter ended her day with "yuv you" I suddenly realized I should end mine the same way.

Life goes by way too fast. It seems like 10 minutes ago I was in high school, but it's actually been 10 years. It just...I dunno. It just seems like this whole thing we're doing here is so damn precious we shouldn't waste a single minute cussing out bad drivers. Instead we should be singing "twinkle twinkle little star" with our kids who will be in high school themselves in another ten minutes.

Forgive me, I am rambling. I just wanted to put it on record that my daughter told me she loved me tonight, and it made the whole day perfect.


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