Breathe In...Breathe Out-Oh, And Don't Have A Nervous Breakdown.

Last night marked a first for both Hallie and I as we attended the first session of our natural child birthing class. As I walked in the room, I got an erie feeling that reminded me of walking into a college classroom on the first day of the semester. The class itself wasn't all that bad, lots of information, some interesting and a lot of no-brainer info, buy hey, it was only the first class.

By the end, we were on the floor listening to a recording of either the most calm human to ever live or some form of human-simulated cyborg voice tell us how to breath and relax. Looking past how absurd some of it sounded as we listened, it actually seemed to work for most. I, however, was having my own issues with fighting a disastrous diarrhea attack brought on by eating dinner in three minutes in order to make it to class on time. Excuse my honesty.

Intermittently throughout the class the severity of being in charge of a human's life hit me and hit hard. I've never understood the whole mid-life crisis frame of mind, but I think last night I had the surest glimpse yet of what a mid-life crisis feels like. Don't misunderstand, I'm excited to be a dad and have this new part of our life begin, but that doesn't mean it comes easy, at least not for me and I think not for most. On one hand, you're gaining something so great you can't really comprehend it-at least not yet-and on the other hand, you're losing part of yourself in order to gain this priceless addition. For those who know me, I've always been one to gather friends for totally awesome events, create a reason for hanging out-no matter what it was, do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to do it. College taught me a lot about academia and gaining useful knowledge, but also that I could survive on three hours of sleep or less a night-until you pass out from exhaustion that is, which I did once. Basically, with the new responsibility of a baby, the part of me that yearns to chill whenever I have a free second will have to take a backseat to my family. Coming to terms with this is both easy at times, while life-altering hard at others. Thankfully, over the last two years I've done a lot of growing up (though Hallie may not agree due to my acting like a 13-year-old 90% of the time) and many things have happened to help me to do so, inevitably moving me closer to the frame of mind I need to be a good father and a better husband, but that doesn't mean it has come/will come easy. In the end, hopefully we can all embrace the life we have been blessed with and that we have created. So far I've learned that faith, hope and love make it easier...oh and some good music and a diet beverage of choice doesn't hurt either.