Sep 08 2008
Daddy Stuff
I was just feeling sorry for myself a few minutes ago. The usual stuff: fat, unattractive, unemployed, etc. But for some reason my thought took a sharp right turn to Rowen, my 10 year old daughter.
I realised that in 10 years I have never once let her go to bed without hearing me say “I love you”. Even those times when she was busy screaming that she hated me, I made sure she heard me say that. And even those times when I had my doubts about whether it was true (usually those same nights she was screaming that she hated me) I said it and made sure she heard it.
It’s a fairly small thing in the great scope of life. She wont cure cancer because of it. And not hearing it wouldn’t have turned her into a psychotic serial killer who targets middle aged men with children and murders them with princess music boxes while wearing frilly dresses.
But maybe when she’s older and having a bad day — the kind where the whole world has turned to shit and you are certain that nothing and no one has ever loved anything, let alone you — the memory of those “I love you”s, or even just the unconscious knowledge of them, will help her get through it.
I was feeling that way the other day, too. I work out spottily at best, and while I pretend at being a writer, I don’t actually write that much.
So, I decided that starting Monday I would spend 90 days doing at least an hour on the treadmill and at least 1,000 words of fiction each and every day without exception.
It’s five days later and I’ve got about 6,000 words down and I’ve lost four pounds. I’m interested to see what life will be like come Dec. 15. Either way, I’ll be 90 days older.
I figure like the I-love-you’s we’ve been giving our daughters every night without exception lo these many years, what I’m doing won’t make that much differnce day-to-day, but I expect the cumulative effect to be enormous.
Hang in there, Tim.
– Dave
OBAMA ‘08!