First off: Diet. I eat like shit, and I know it. I'm trying now to stick to a diet, which is proving difficult in day 2 because I need soda so badly, but I should be OK. The problem lies in two areas: I'm only a few pounds from being visibly far too over-weight and I don't eat the things I should, like vegetables. Certainly cutting back is what I might have attributed the difficulty to, but it's actually a much deeper problem. Eating right is admiting that I've been doing it wrong for a long time, and I hate to be wrong. It's a complex I got growing up, because I was never allowed to be right around my step-dad. The edge I have in this battle is that at least I know the root of the problem.
Then there's the purpose of life in terms of having a job. It occured to me last night that the troubling thing about not having a day job isn't about the money. Since this time around I'm not going to starve any time soon, it has cleared my mind and made me realize that it's really about being a vital part of something, whether that be a team, a community or just a simple social circle. That came to me when I realized that being a part of volleyball, as a coach, is about the social aspect, and not so much about the game. That's what made me realize I wanted to coach another year, where money is already not the issue.
And that leads to the next issue of family. Now that I'm older and wiser, I feel like my family life hasn't been very fulfilling, probably for the last decade or more. My most satisfying family life has been with my dearest wife and the times we share together, with our friends. Every single day I'm astounded at how much I love our little unit, me, Steph and to a certain degree the cats. Then there are our closer friends. We don't have many close friends, but those few relationships are worth more than thousands of simple acquaintances.
The idea of family then leads to the issue of children. We've waited because we've just never felt the time was right, or that we ever needed to have kids at all. But as time rolls on, there's this part of me that wants a child, a little girl. I'm not sure what my hangup is that I want a girl and not a boy, but I guess it's because I crave the kind of relationships I've had with kids I've coached, only on a deeper and permanent level (that and I can't stand teenage and pre-teen boys, they annoy the piss out of me). The kids I coach come and go, but a daughter is forever. Regardless, I'm not in a hurry about it, but I'm starting to understand why I want it.
That's a lot of deep shit to think about at one time. That's what keeps life interesting though, because I think you eventually die still not having totally figured things out. That might scare a lot of people, but to me it's comforting.
You know, my husband and I were in our early 30's before we had Ian. We wanted to be comfortable with our lives before we added to the "unit", especially knowing how much our lives would change once we had a kid. Spontenaity goes out the window completely. Even at 17, we still have to deal with "can you guys keep it down in there? SHEESH!" (Talk about a turn off). If we'd started earlier, we might have had more than one. I don't know...we got just what we wanted in Ian who was a very good baby and toddler. I guess we didn't want to mess with the odds.
As for the boy vs. girl thing, my husband was hoping for a girl. The moment Ian was born (none of this late ultrasound to figure it out beforehand for us), Gordon simply lit up. "It's a boy! It's a boy!" When I said I thought he wanted a girl, he grinned and said "I changed my mind!"
Personally, I'm glad we had a boy. Gordon's favorite saying is we only have to worry about one boy, with a girl, you have to worry about ALL of them. After going through the pre-teen and teenage years with Ian, I'm still convinced that girls would be harder to deal with. We didn't have to deal much with the clothes, hair, makeup thing, nor the extreme mood swings of puberty that my sister in law went through with my niece. Crying and hurt feelings was constant between 12 and 16. Put 7 or 8 boys together for an overnighter, and they keep themselves occupied with video games. Put 7 or 8 girls together, and they giggle and scream all night long. And the cattiness! Makes me wonder if I was ever like that (shudder).
I was a tomboy. I played with worms and snakes and bugs. I liked getting dirty. I was happier fishing and hunting than I was giggling and drooling over boys. I climbed trees, played football, and prefered hot wheels and the Big Boy Tank over dolls. Boys were someone to wrestle with and I had/have more male friends than female. God forbid if I'd had a "girlie" girl. I don't know if I could have dealt with it.
Regardless, you will know when the time is right. And whatever you end up with, boy or girl, you will find that nothing is stronger than the love a parent has for a child. Nothing.