I grabbed a beer with an acquaintance and discussed fatherhood.
Like 11 months ago. No joke, I have been thinking about this for that long. That night, the fact that someone asked me for some advice on what being a dad is like, floored me. What do I know, I’ve been doing it for 9 months (at the time the beers were had)
See the thing about this particular dude is we met at a buddies wedding. He was the best man and I was a groomsman. The groom had been one of my best friends since 7th grade, well over 10 years. That was the first time I had ever had to much to drink. And Trevor had a front row seat. In the interest of full disclosure, it was ridiculously fun. I never really thought about what being drunk would actually be like until I was already there.
So to me, being asked about fatherhood over beers, by a dude who has seen me at one of my most vulnerable states was humbling to say the least. I still after all this time don't know how to process the reasons why it all happened.
Anyways, we drank, and I just laid out everything that I had experienced through late stage pregnancy, and early fatherhood (because once a dad always a dad so really, early fatherhood is probably like 15 years). I felt that I did not have to hold anything back because the nature of our relationship was that of openness. To be honest, I try to be as truthful and raw whenever I have a conversation that will most likely have some sort of lasting affect.
When the conversation began to slow down and the beers were near empty, I dropped this bomb on Trevor; “This biggest thing I’ve learned about being a dad is that everyone else’s advice is pretty much shit.” Every single human baby is different and responds differently to everything. The possible scenarios are endless and you cannot rely on really anything except for intuition and having a wife that wants to do this with you. Everyone has good intentions, but they are not you and they do not know your kid. Take everything with a grain of salt, and be yourself. Never compromise who you are to try and be a different version of yourself just to make people think a certain way about you.
The quote is accurate, and then I rambled some stuff along those lines.
Later.
