Scarier Than Halloween

Hold an image like this in your mind. It's what gets a parent through the day. This is a picture of a moment where everything is right. That doesn't happen often in parenting. Being a parent is only a part of who I am, but in many ways, it has changed me forever. It's not cool, it's frequently not fun, and it is thankless most of the time. I only hope that when we release these two into the world, that they will give back to our world. In this job, though, there are no guarantees. I often feel like I am leaping into an abyss.

It was so much easier when they were babies. Everyone complains about all the work it takes when they are infants. I would gladly take a day of diapers at this point. It was much easier. This is the part where it gets hard. Trusting is difficult and easily messed up. I know all about it, because I screwed up bigtime when I was young. Maybe that's why I get scared. I get it now. No matter how many times I try to help them avoid the same mistakes I made when I was growing up, they probably will have to figure it out for themselves. It is a bizarre existence right now. I can almost feel my childhood experiences being erased from history as a new generation begins to make all the same ones for the "first time." There is no Vulcan mind meld that I can do to pass my knowledge to them. I just get to watch them flounder and hope they listened.