Dear Cambria,
I started and stopped so many times writing little stories about brining you home and what it’s been like to become a father. For some reason I was under the impression when I started this that I’d just try to share with you the things that I was learning before I was your father and somehow it would carry more legitimacy than after your mother birthed you.
I realize now that what I have to say will never carry legitimacy - just kidding. Hopefully I can still be more relatable at twenty-nine than I will be when you’re eighteen and I’m FOURTY-SIX years old.
You are a funny child - you have such expressive eyebrows and your grandmother is convinced that you’re going to be exceedingly intelligent. You just started walking a few weeks ago and your progress on teeth has been disappointing to say the least - you’re only up to 2.5 teeth to date. Your mom and I carry you in our arms while you point and make a funny sound and we just walk around in circles incessantly - looking at photos of ourselves and a few with you.
You’ve started toddler explosions - where when you aren’t getting exactly what you want you’ll just start to scream and roll around on the ground. I tried this technique at work this week and it was not successful at all.
You chase Nixi all over the house and slap her face and pull on her tail - she has been amazing with you which we’re oh-so-grateful for because we had a sincere fear that we we’re going to have to give her up because she’s quite neurotic. She’s actually part of an antisocial dog gang - so far it’s just her and Dragon - but their ranks are bound to swell.
You’ve changed everything about my life - writing these I have this desire to communicate to you when you’re in your late teenage years becoming an adult. But someday you may choose to become a mother and a parent and I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t try to share my new parental point of view with you.
At work I have a new struggle thinking about if I want to be the CEO of the company any longer (no one was offering) but I always just imagined that I would keep making gradual grinding career moves closer to the top job. Now I’m conflicted between “work-life balance” (not my favorite phrase) and trying to set a good example for you by pushing myself and showing you what’s possible.
Thinking about budgeting time towards focusing on my mental, emotional, and physical health is more complicated. I have had some good routines at times regarding hitting the gym before work, doing mindfulness mediation everyday, and cultivating knowledge. But now as I consider staring at your face versus going for a jog I’ve found a new reason to hang out at home. Don’t get me wrong - there is plenty of dead time in my day. But when it comes to expending energy - all I want to allocate my energy towards in interacting with you.
To dove-tail with the whole idea about when you read this - there is another thought that is already running through my head even though you’re just a baby. I won’t take credit for it but it goes something like this: you’re not raising a child, you’re raising an adult.
It’s so important for me to remember that even though you’re my entire world that I’ll be something of a footnote in your life, God willing we both live long and healthy lives. You’ll move out of the home (hopefully) in your late teens or early twenties. You might fall in love with someone and get married. You might be an astronaut on Elon Musk’s Mars settlement. You might be the CEO of the Bank of America and I might be working for you. You might an artist and scrape by in a big city. But you’ll live your own life and choose your own family. And you might be all of those things or none of them.
The only thing you’ll always be is loved.
Love Always,
Dad
P.S. You’ll have to let me know if you ever looked at the appx 5,000 still images and 1,000 videos your mother and I took of you this first year
P.S.S. If you’re one of the other kids reading this and you’re mad that we didn’t take as many photos I’m sorry - we were tired
