We Got This

Random thought. Let’s see if it leads to a blog post. It’s rare to have perspective in the moment. I’m not talking about the general concept of self-awareness, but the more specific idea of what my night was like.

Tonight, I had a front row seat to one of the greatest shows I’ve been to. And as I was enjoying the performance, I dropped everything to make sure I got to take in the full experience. but, only now, 6ish hours later did it sink in just how cool my life is. How lucky I am. How, some day, I’m going to long for days like today as the good old days.

I didn’t even have to pay money for tonight’s show. I was one of 11 people tuning in to hear my daughter be the announcer for her school newspaper’s live broadcast of their varsity boys' soccer game.

It was magic. Dead air for the first few minutes. Later, riley would tell me that in that space her producer muted her and her partner’s microphones to tell them that they had to talk. What?

Slowly they got going. Riley’s soccer career ended in about 2^nd grade. She doesn’t know the verbiage. So, for her to do play by play for a sport she doesn’t participate in or talk about ever is asking a lot.

predictably, she and her broadcast partner cried a lot on the way home. But, they were tears from laughter at how ill-equipped they were to do that job. All harbinger staffers have to get a certain number of broadcast credits each year.

So, what better way to knock that out then to do it with a friend. now they have a story to tell. They were super cute. I messaged riley at half-time telling her thank god that particular goalkeeper was playing, because they wouldn’t have had much to say had they not repeated his name multiple times.

I tried to get her to mix in the coach’s theme for the year “strength in brotherhood”. And sporting kc's announcer’s favorite phrase, “that was a cynical challenge.” I also encouraged her to use an English accent.

She did none of the above.

But, I also brought some stats and history and pointed out the importance of senior night. As soon as the second half started, she ran with all that, rattling off the 46 goals for, 4 goals against. East’s record. Their opponent’s record. Next game. How they did in state last year.

The girls did great. I’d pay actual money to hear them call a Chiefs game.

Anyway, that was a lengthy description of what was supposed to be a short lead in. the best seat in town is always the view you get of your kid’s childhood. But, we get so busy with work and stress and relationships and other nonsense that it passes us by.

Today, I was reminiscing with blake about the pick-up line at his elementary school. Not, like how he got his first girlfriends kind of pick-up line, but the procession of parental cars around the circle that signaled the end of the school day. He said, “I don’t even remember that.”

It was only 4 years ago.

4 more and he’s off to college and I am disappeared. Who the hell will I be then? Identity-less. Child-less. Two kids in college. Okay. Who cares? What I am now is a spectator. And that’s the point. Soaking this shit up.

Blake and I got to laugh multiple times tonight listening to riley do her thing. God, it was really great. And how many people who watched thought it was great? Maybe just one.

But, god damnit. My daughter knows that I was that one. And I know she got a kick out of my halftime pep texts. She responded with a hearty HHAHAHAH. And told me to keep texting. And so when she thinks back on that moment, she won’t see it as her failing. She’ll see it as her dad was there to cheer her on. Hopefully.

Blake is reading to kill a mockingbird in English. Nope. Blake is supposed to be reading TKAM, but he is instead reading the sparknotes. Same thing I would have done. But, at the dinner table last night, I told the kids my favorite line from that book.

“my father looked at me mildly, amusement in his eyes.”

Who cares if I actually got that quote right…me texting riley tonight was that quote personified and one day she’ll get that. The highest praise my mom could give was “he got a kick out of me”. That’s it for me with my childrens. I get the biggest kick out of those two.

So, is my facebook an annoying celebration of that? Overkill? Tmi?

Fuck no.

It’s not for my fb friends, it’s the scrapbook of my kids’ childhood that I’ll give them one day. Every fb post about them is chronicled in a blog that I keep. I hope to god they look back on it some day and it screams “I get a kick out of you two.” And the wounds that childhood brings and the pain of divorce and all the shit they’ve had to put up with can somehow, in part, be healed by it sinking in to them that amusement has been in my eyes every step of this journey as their daddy.

And part of that is my writing. They’ll (maybe) read all my blogs one day. The real shit. The blog I archived for now, because it’s super extra personal. And the entry that I was reminded of tonight as riley’s 17^th birthday approaches was the letter I wrote her five years ago.

Her 12^th birthday got upended by the relationship I was in at the time. I basically wrote riley a letter saying I was breaking up with my girlfriend to put her and her brother first. It took a few months. And then a few more months. But, I did it.

And I think she’s old enough now to appreciate it. so, I’ll wrap it up and give her a copy of the letter for birthday number 17. And explain to her that I wouldn’t change a thing. On Saturday, she got home from work and we chatted for an hour. That. Is why I broke up with Sarita. For chances to make sure riley and blake both know that they are front burner material. They’re my priority.

And, it’s weird. This week, I got to put them first again. I got back on that dating app, Bumble, which is an exercise in stupidity for me. I’m old. and ab free. And the clever only takes me so far in that world.

But, this week I matched with women that looked like dreams come true. And we chatted. And one girl in particular was super forward about getting together. And it was flattering. And mind-fucking, because she was a lot better looking than me.

But, then reality hit. I’m living in a waking dream. Watching both kids do their thing and hit their stride and develop their personalities. Fuck all if I’m going to miss any of that. I had this moment of clarity after spending multiple hours watching blake play soccer (and right after that was the long talk with riley).

I’m not repeating the riley 12^th birthday debacle. I’m going to see the kids’ childhood out. and enjoy every last minute of it.

I’m not well, right? That’s why I write. And some combo of the girls I attract and the ones I’m attracted to…unhealthy. So, the result is chaos. But, me as a single dad…that’s the calm.

And the kids’ childhood has been bumpy enough. This week I picked calm when I told the hot Bumble girl thanks, but no thanks.

Ooooh…back to how this started. Perspective. Any time any girl I was attracted to gave me the time of day, I’ve always jumped in with both feet. Somehow, this week I was aware of just how great my life is...how great my seats are. And cold feeted the bumble girl to keep enjoying our family’s show.

The kids and I started a family vlog a few years ago called “Running out of Interesting”. The vlog that you would watch after you had watched all of youtube’s quality content. Like most of my dreams, it fizzled. But, I get to replay all these great memories in my head…like, I’m the only audience to all the amazing episodes of running out of interesting that never got filmed.

And I hope those reruns are what replay in the kids’ heads when they think back on their childhoods.

There’s this thing that I struggle with. Where I’m reminded of the most random memory. It doesn’t have to be something I fucked up. More often than not, it’s just something I did that made me feel stupid. It plays on a constant loop in my mind. not like every second of every day, but it's consistently there. different memories. at random times. my mind at war with my self-worth.

And, to a certain extent, I think it stems from how I was made to feel when I was a kid. The memory that always gets me is asking my dad to play with my friend mike and me. And it was a business transaction. He threw the ball like a robot.

The lasting memory is my dad’s back turned, walking away from the game. He had put in his 10 minutes and it was time to get back to what was really important to him, the garden. So, I got to feel the embarrassment of having my best friend see who my dad really was.

Or the memory of my dad teaching me to ride a bike. Him looking down on me when I fell off again. Arms crossed. Not…pick me up….Dust me off…We got this. Keyword “we”. But, rather giving me the feeling of “how are you not fucking getting this?”

I get it man. Your childhood was worse than mine. It was what it was. Both of them. But, god fucking damnit…riley and blake are not going to suffer from the incessant home movie that plays inside my head telling me what a piece of shit I am.

Running out of such and such. Running out of the old family traditions. Running into some new ones. The fucked up thing is how do I possibly know that my looks of amusement…my mild Atticus Finch looks at my kids…are they getting through? They might be. They might not.

But, I know for sure that distracted matt. Head on a swivel matt. The one who let his mind get fucked by this girlfriend or that. He was less able to be a good dad. The fucked up childhood led, in part, to fucked up adult relationships.

So, I hope, if I screech on the brakes and keep my chaotic relationships out of the kids’ childhood stories then maybe they’ll be more capable of getting that Moulin Rouge “to love and be loved in return” reality in their adult relationships.

I don’t know. it’s also possible that I’m just a chicken shit and even if my dream girl did appear. The one who would make me whole and make me an even better dad, I’d still bow out of the relationship before it started to try to make myself look good in a blog. Shit.

But, I write to make fun of myself. And make sense of my life and only after reading this back do I see that tonight is part of my own healing. Riley fell off her bike on air tonight, but my texts told her “we got this.”