Journeys

When you are a child, you are often very selfish.  You think about yourself and you are concerned about yourself.  If you are a rare kid, you wonder about the health of your parents and your family and your friends.  But most kids are concerned with themselves.  They don't worry about money, they don't worry about how food appears in the fridge.

As you grow older, you start to worry about more of the people in your life.  You might find yourself fretting over the health of your parents or how they are going to afford to send you to that summer camp that you want.  You're still pretty selfish, and your view of the world is fairly narrow.

As a young adult, most people begin to worry about the greater world around them.  They might weep over starving children in Africa.  Or worse, starving children in the United States.  They might worry about the health of their family and friends.  They worry about money, now that they have to earn their own.  Once you get married, you add another person to worry about.  You wonder if they'll get sick or get injured or die and leave you alone.

And then, you have kids.  And your world goes all topsy-turvey, upside down.  I worry about my extended family, but it's kind of a peripheral concern.  I worry about my husband leaving me and my son, because we love him, and we'd be lost without him.  I worry about dying and leaving my child and my husband all alone.  But more than anything, the idea of my child getting sick or hurt or, god forbid, dying sends me into a full-blown panic moment.  In just over a year, he has become the center of my universe.

Everything else, all of the social issues that I used to rant about, all the things that used to be so important to me...just...aren't.  I know that 'they' say that parents should keep their hobbies, and I do still have them, but Roland is always going to come first.  I'm not going to hare off to a convention on a whim and $50 in my pocket, with a prayer that I can figure out how to pay rent when I get home.  I'm not going to up and quit a job just 'cause I don't like it anymore and I want something different.  My priorities have all changed and my prescriptive on life has all changed.

But I think that it's a good change, and I welcome it with open arms.  Parenthood isn't for everyone, and I respect that choice.  But it has made me a better person and it has made me feel like a more complete person.  For all the stress and the tears and the anxiety, this journey has been absolutely worth it.