{To honor Father’s Day, we are handing over our computers to the men in our lives and turning this little piece of the world wide web into Nashville Dads Blog! Read along with their joys and struggles, and find out why we are so very thankful to have these awesome dads in our lives.}
Have you ever watched a sporting event or read some news article about the next great genius billionaire and been surprised that they were so young? So surprised that you’ve taken the time to mention the year they were born to anyone sitting around? The game, “guess what year they were born” is played every day in our house. From that “one actor” in that “one show” to that “guy that just invented that thing that sold for $1.5 trillion.” It just seems crazy, thinking about being born in the first half of the 80’s and seeing dates like 1995 pop up on the Wikipedia page of a huge majority of the people that are now extremely culturally relevant. I know it’s really just a number, and in the grand scheme of life it’s nothing, but it is always surprising to see, and it definitely makes me feel old… there’s no debating that.
It hit me recently, close to home, in thinking about my son, Holden. Thinking about all the great things that my son is going to accomplish in his life and to know that he is going to be tied to those numbers, 09.20.2014 forever. His Wikipedia, or IMDB, or debated birth certificate will forever read 2014. “2064 Nobel Prize Laureate: my son – born 2014”. “2072 Pritzker Laureate: my son – born 2014” “Cambridge University Class of 2028: my son – born 2014” Ok, so maybe graduating from Cambridge at 14 is a little of a stretch but who am I to set that standard?! If I think seeing 2014 is odd, I’m definitely in no position to assume what his limits are.
I think this may be what amazes me most every day as a father, and to some degree keeps me from completely losing it even when he’s losing it, is that he does have the ability to do more than expected. I don’t keep a chart or scale for what his brain and body are doing day to day. Yes, you can track these things but tracking something is only looking at what has already been done, not what’s possible. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, “you can take the same observations and predict what he’s going to do, and be, and accomplish.” But I whole-heartedly believe that you can not live life based off of the charts.
On the same note, the rate at which I am continuously surprised by my small little ball of noise and poop, leaves me having a hard time believing that charts will ever fully predict what he is capable of, or even come close. Until the day that we can time-travel and I’m definitively proven wrong, I refuse to believe that he is capable of any less than greatness. I believe that I must do nothing less than go to the ends of the earth, my wits, my abilities and back; just to make sure that he stays ahead of the charts, and that all possibilities are his, starting September 20, 2014.
– Andrew Clark
