Today's Father's Day, and I've been thinking about it lately....not necessarily being a father, which I think about pretty much every second of every day, but more about how quickly life has progressed from idiot teenager to responsible father. A lot of it actually has to do with Facebook. With everyone on it I've been able to reconnect with college and high school friends (even some elementary school friends) that I haven't spoken to in 10, 15, even 20 years or more.
Here's the funny thing. In my head, I know that everyone is now in their mid-thirties (even 40's for some). I can do the math. I know that I last spoke to a lot of my friends when I was 18 or 19 years old, which means that, essentially, a whole other lifetime has elapsed. That's not really the funny part. I don't feel that old. I have a variation of the same conversation with my wife all the time. It goes like this, "you know what, I really don't feel 37 years old," to which she says "that's because you're 38!" They say you're only as old as you feel. I hope it's true because most of the time I still feel a lot younger than 38. I'm rambling a bit, but what I'm trying to get at is this. My brain has trouble reconciling the grown-up, responsible family men that I see on Facebook, with the 18 year-old buddies that I used to run around with.
It's got to be the time gap. Throughout the 20 years since I last talked to a lot of friends, I've kept in touch with my best friend that I grew up with. He got married a lot earlier than I did, and consequently his kids are a lot older than mine. Seeing it happen gradually, it's easy to process the transition from childhood best friend, to best friend who's a great husband and father.
With everyone else, it's harder. It's the same with elementary school and college friends, but for the most part, I'm thinking about my high school friends here. I was lucky enough to have a really good group of friends that I hung out with in high school. We did some stupid things, but never really got in any serious trouble. After high school we went our separate ways. So there's this mental gap between 18 years old, hanging out, playing volleyball, soccer, fishing, camping, and yes, admittedly, maybe a little underage drinking, and 38 years old, professional, responsible, role-model fathers. Without any memories, or knowledge of each person's personal evolution it's impossible to know how each of my friends "grew-up" (for lack of a better term).
I have old friends that are now doctors, lawyers, military men, professors, pastors, business men, and about everything else you can think of, and every one's path to adulthood has been different. I'm not sure what my point is, maybe I don't have a specific point. I just know that for the most part, regardless of what those old friends are doing for a living, they have become proud, responsible fathers that their kids can be proud of. Some have kids going to college already. Some, like me, are only a few years into fatherhood. Some are single fathers, and some married women with children, and have adopted those kids as their own.
I think one of the problems with society today is an overall lack of good, strong father figures. All I can say is, that's not the case with most of the guys on my friends list. Regardless of the situation, I just wanted to say how proud and honored I am to call these guys my friends. Happy Fathers Day to all of you, and congratulations on being such good dads.
Oh, and by the way, to any single moms out there who don't have the benefit of having exes who can still manage to be good fathers, I say happy Father's Day to you too. If you're playing both roles, you're damn right you deserve it!
