5.20.2007

Late Night Neuroses

It's the thoughts that come to you late at night that throw you for a loop the most - the "what if's", if you follow me. I sat around tonight, downloading my many, many, many CDs from over the years into my faithful Mac Mini, and the old gray matter got to wandering/wondering...what if my little boy thinks I'm the biggest nerd on the planet? Seriously...what if?

My friends thinking this - I can deal with. I've dealt with it for nearly 20 years, and I've gotten comfortable with it. Ever since 8th grade when I had that all-so-brief dalliance with popularity with my buddy Scott Morelli, and decided that ditching "true friends" in exchange for "popular friends" just wasn't worth it. All who know me now know I'm a nerd/geek at heart...it's just who I am. But, somehow, my son thinking it is a very different matter.

The boy isn't even born yet and I'm already worrying about how I size up in his eyes. Is this normal? Is this rational? Regardless of what it is, it's what is going on...I've got some serious stage-fright about how I'll appear once the curtain is up on this parenthood. And - this is the weird part - I'm confident in how I'll do as a parent. I've got love coming out of every pore for the little monkey, and he isn't even here yet. In addition, I've had a strong notion of the type of parent I'd like to be for many years. Also, I really couldn't ask for a stronger partner in sprouting this little bean than LampLover. She's been raised with most of the same values as myself, and we're both in tune with the basic rules of how we'd like our child to develop. But, outside of the basic "outline" of our son's growth...I just wanna be cool. I wanna be a dad he can come to and talk with and not worry about any sort of harsh judgement from. My dad was this way with me - granted, it was an every-other-weekend kind of relationship with him, but it was still that way.

So...is it wrong to want to be your son's hero when he's not even a part of our physical, breathing world? Any other dads think this same way? Maybe I'm just a nutty monkey. I have no issues with that, really. As long as it all works out in the long run...and it's a long run still to come. The starter's gun hasn't gone off, and I'm already working over the neuroses. Nice...