Nashville RAGE

by aaron on December 25th, 2007

I’ve been told by a friend that Michelle’s art is on the cover on the Rage … we’re in Florida this week, so I have no idea about this. Could anyone pick up some copies for us? Any idea what piece is on the cover? It’s weird hearing news like this the one week we’re not around :)

In other news, It’s Christmas day and I’m sitting by the window of our condo on the beach, watching dolphins in the unusually clear Panama City Beach water. We’re on the 14th floor, so sitting in the living room, we can’t see the beach, only endless water, it feels like we’re on a very tall boat.

The internet connection is horrible here. This will probably be my only post, if I can even get it to work. It’s too cold outside today to sit on the balcony, and when the sun is out, it’s warm enough, but the sun is so bright, it washes out the laptop screen. So basically God is telling me to NOT be on the computer this week, which is fine by me :)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. This Christmas season for me has been unlike any other in my history, both with good news and bad news. My step-grandmother passed away yesterday. It’s sad, definitely, but the saddest part was several years ago when she began slipping down the path of dementia … Grandpa Corn had died several years ago, and Grandma Corn has been living in a nursing home ever since. She’s been wanting to die ever since she went to the nursing home, and this morning it dawned on me that even though for us, it’s hard and sad for her to pass on Christmas Eve, she is getting to spend Christmas with her husband again, and that makes me feel very warm, just knowing that.

I think my favorite present I got this year was a little bib that Michelle got me that says “I Love Daddy.” Seeing that made me tear up at the breakfast table. (Let me clarify and say that the bib is for the BABY … sometimes I probably need a bib, and I do love my daddy, but the bib is for baby.) It put things in perspective. Like I said, Christmas this year has been very different than it’s ever been, and it will never be the same again. In the end, I think that will be a very great thing. I look forward to being a dad. I look forward to the possibility of working for myself. I look forward to showing my child what it means to be a good dad and a good husband.

I just heard thunder. This morning, the ocean looked like a freaking lake, I’ve never seen it so calm. It’s started picking up. I don’t see any dolphins at the moment. I should probably catch the weather and see what’s ahead. We’re going to take in a guilty-pleasure kind of a movie this afternoon. The new National Treasure movie. It will have a far-fetched plot and will likely showcase horrible acting like the last one did. But I love movies like this, and for this I apologize to no one.

And speaking of which, the new Indiana Jones movie will be coming out in 2008. Just another reason why ‘08 will be a year for the books. If only we can survive the elections.

Merry Christmas!

Aaron

Yeah

by aaron on December 20th, 2007

I know, I haven’t updated in awhile. It’s been a heck of a week. And I also didn’t want to turn this blog into a rant-fest. But there is some light on the horizon … dim light, but it’s there. We may have found a realistic solution to our insurance problems, but it’s now in my employer’s hands. We are going to the doctor’s tomorrow morning for our third pre-natal visit and I HOPE we get to maybe hear the heartbeat again … I can’t wait for that! Last night we spent with a friend from California, and tonight we’re spending with another friend from California. And Saturday morning we are leaving to go down to Florida for a week. Woo-hoo! Never spent Christmas on the beach before. Hopefully I can blog a little when I’m down there.

Thanks again for everyone’s blessings and friendship. I think that somewhere in the muckiness of the past two weeks of our lives, Michelle and I can still feel warmth from our friends and family, and while we’re learning the hard way that there are certain things we can’t count on, there are other things that we most certainly can. Christmas is in 5 days. 5 freaking days. I’m in short sleeves.

Chutes and Ladders

by aaron on December 14th, 2007

Remember the game? If you can call it a game. There’s very little chaos and destruction, hardly any real chance at personal injury, and if my memory serves me, you don’t even get a firearm. Just ladders. And slides (or chutes if you like fancy talk). When I was a kid I loved that game. And Uncle Wiggly. For some reason I really liked those games. I always adored Mouse Trap when I was at a friend’s house, but I never owned it for some sad reason.

Ever since I found out I was going to be a dad, I haven’t been afraid of ladders anymore. I used to be terrified of falling off the ladder. But literally the week I found out, I was faced with the task of painting on top of a ladder, and I just said outloud, “I’m going to be a dad” and went on up. I’ve been getting on ladders ever since, including today. I learned to trust the ladder, and myself. I trust that it won’t fall, it won’t break or tip over. They’re designed to be sturdy. I decided that if I’m going to be a dad, I can’t be afraid of ladders anymore. They don’t mix. I will have many tougher obstacles to face from now on, and a ladder can be a small victory in the process.

Anyone need me to hang anything up high?

Friends

by aaron on December 11th, 2007

Okay, my brain’s a bit fried after the typical Tuesday meeting-marathon, and I couldn’t think of a less-cheesy title, other than “friends.” It won’t be the last cheesy title, so get used to it.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick note and say how amazing it’s been to have been showered with love by all of our friends and family. It’s been absolutely vital in this difficult process. Not that people necessarily have the answers for us, but just the love and empathy and support we’ve felt … this is the way that God reveals himself to us, through people. It’s the only way it’s ever been. And I never meant to overwhelm this blog with Christianese or anything, but this stuff is on my heart and this is a very unexpectedly trying spiritual time for me. God is real, God is good, and He is always faithful. Just because I can’t always see His devotion, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Thank you everyone for everything. We love you all and appreciate every word.

Uncertain future

by aaron on December 11th, 2007

A friend told me a story today about sitting on his porch in a rocking chair many years ago, holding his baby girl in his arms, saying to her that she had absolutely no idea how precarious and uncertain their family’s future was. Laying there wrapped up in a brand new world, all she knew is that she was depending on her mommy and daddy exclusively for survival. Yet here he was with his new baby girl, and what could he do but just continue to pray and try to do the best that he could? Years later, and in a much healthier stage of life, he looks back and sees clearly that God was taking care of his children this whole time much better than he was able to do.

I feel a parallel with my own life. Honestly, Michelle and I are scared. We’re not hopeless, we’re not hiding under our desks (well, not most of the time), but we’re scared. 2008 for us (not to mention the rest of our lives) was already going to be completely new territory. Uncharted waters. Oh, and here’s another helping of fear to go along with the uncertainty, let’s just take that “job security” away. That scares me the most, just not knowing. I feel like life is backing us into a corner right now, where, I believe, there is going to be nothing else that we can depend on except God. Our faith and love in Him are the only things that make sense. He knows me, Michelle, and what are struggles have been, what our lives are about to go through. Sitting in my Creative Arts meeting today at the church was an incredible experience. God is restructuring us all. Three of us are being cut back to part-time. Two of us are leaving completely, which is entirely (seemingly) coincidental. This is all happening right now at this time in history for a reason.

Yeah, I work at the church. God is changing me, just as he’s changing some of my close friends, whether it’s inside or outside the church walls. It’s amazing actually. But it’s still scary. Really scary. It’s a process. I know we’ll come out on the other side, probably better and brighter and happier than we’ve ever been, because the experience will undoubtedly test our faith and grow our hearts. We’ll get there. But right now I am still comfortably in somewhat of a freak-out mode. Sort of. I’m allowed to be a little freaked out given my situation, right? It’ll pass, but the only way out is through. Did Robert Frost say that?

Christmas and babies

by aaron on December 10th, 2007

Just thinking that right now, I have a tiny baby living inside my wife, it makes me to excited I can’t stand it. Yeah, all this job stuff is going on that we didn’t anticipate, but when it comes down to it, I’m already a dad … the baby is just living on the inside. And this time next year we will be holding our little son or daughter in our arms, with the tree lit, sipping hot cocoa, wondering what we ever did without a baby in the house. It really mesmerizes me when I think about what life will be like this time next year, how Thanksgiving and July 4th and Halloween and Christmas will all be different from now on. I welcome the change, I welcome becoming a family man. Michelle and I have pledged to expose our kids to the world, to show them culture, take them to art shows and other cool things. We’re going to be a very artsy family, I hope. I will be surprised if we raise an accountant. It could happen, I suppose. If so, I hope they are an accountant with blue hair and great taste in music.

Aquent

by aaron on December 8th, 2007

The morning I got the news that I was being cut down to part time at work, about an hour before the meeting, I got a call from a representative from Aquent, a graphic design placement firm. They were calling to tell me all about their company and that should BCC ever need additional creative types, that they could help us fill those positions. Now, at the time of the call, I knew what was happening to my job, I just hadn’t been told officially yet. I thought about telling her the irony of the timing of this phone call … kinda like, not only do we NOT need any more designers on our team, but do you wanna help me find a job? It was weird.

I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet. Michelle and I need a little time to decompress. Insurance is the main thing. I am fairly sure that I want to make the freelance thing happen, as well as growing the whole painting/artist side of my life, which is a dream of mine. Hopefully all while staying at the church part time, because I really do love the place. Health insurance is the big variable here … My eyes and ears are open on all fronts. Maybe I think I’m going to go freelance, but who knows, someone could call me tomorrow about a great job somewhere. I’m open at this point.

I’ll tell you honestly what I think. I’ve been talking about going freelance and painting (and eventually writing novels) for a long long time. I think God finally got tired of hearing me talk and decided to give me a kickstart. He’s going to make sure we’re okay. He always has. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about taking this leap into the freelance world while my wife was pregnant … stability and a pregnant lady are nice companions. But here we are, and for the time, stability is kind of out of the question.

Or is it? Maybe this is a way where God is really going to show Michelle and me that we’re going to be taken care of. Seriously, I have sought out graphic design business one time, two years ago when Michelle lost her job. I got one client out of that, who I still have a great relationship with today. Other than that, I’ve done a LOT of work that has literally fallen in my lap. It’s what’s kept us out of the poor house so far. Not by anything I’ve done. It’s totally been a God thing so far, and I think that’s just going to continue and increase from here on. We’ve got a baby on the way. We’ve definitely been wrestling with the “Why on Earth is this happening NOW?” thoughts … and those aren’t over. If this had happened at any other time, we wouldn’t be as scared. How do we get past paying insane rates for health insurance? Can we make sure Michelle and the baby are covered through another insurance policy? That’s the variable. That’s the biggest question of all. How do people do it? And we’ll have a kid eventually to cover as well.

But people do it every day, don’t they?

Earliest Memory

by aaron on December 7th, 2007

The earliest memory I can think of right now happened at some point probably when I was two, living in Ohio, and it’s a two-parter. I guess we lived in some old apartment at the time, and I have this foggy idea of a drunk Santa Claus walking down from the upstairs, making a lot of racket and scaring the crap out of me. Part two of the memory (same apartment, same relative time period, different day) is much more vivid. I was playing in my room (or at least a room where my toys were kept) with Bert and Ernie dolls. My mom was doing laundry and I really needed my Superman shirt washed because it was really important that I wear it. While I was waiting for the shirt to be washed, I guess I had shut and locked myself in my room. While I was playing with Ernie, something stupid happened. Stuffed dolls have little looped tags sewn into the side. I had put my finger in the looped tag, and began twisting it around for some reason. All was fine and swell until I’d twisted it so tight that my finger turned deep blue. And I had twisted it so tight, I couldn’t figure out how to untwist it. So what does any decent two-year old boy do? I think I started screaming like a little girl. With the door locked. I’m sure that freaked my parents out, and I remember my dad picking the lock with a coat hanger to get inside and rescue me from Ernie.

I think that’s pretty much all I remember before our hippie nomad days when we went down to Florida. I’ll tell stories about that later.

My brother Clayton is 6 years younger than I am. I remember sometime after he was born (obviously at some point when he was talking) my mom tried to ask him if he had any memory of being in the womb. He didn’t, of course, but I was fascinated at the time that my mom would even ask that. Just think if we really could remember what it was like in the womb. It’s like in The Abyss when Ed Harris had to force himself to breath liquid, and the scraggly guy told him that he breathed liquid for the first 9 months of his life, his body would remember. Memory is such a fascinating topic for me. Just think that right now, my little lemon-sized baby has actual, real brain waves firing, and a real brain, and that memories of the experience right now in the womb are forming. Maybe we all do have memories of what it’s like to live like that, we just haven’t ever accessed it yet.

Timing

by aaron on December 6th, 2007

Several weeks ago when I decided I wanted to start writing this blog, i decided to start roughly six months out, and continue six months after, engaging in a one-year exploration. While I fully understand the difference between calendar months, strictly-four-week-months, and 28 day cycles, for the purposes of this blog, I decided to use your run-of-the-mill Gregorian Calendar months. That’s why I chose December 6th as my starting date.

Apparently that wasn’t the only significance of this date. Today at around 11:30am I found out that as of February 1st, I will be going from full-time to part-time at my job. This is slightly on the really really scary side of things because going from 40 hours to 20 hours not only means a drastic pay cut, but with it, there goes my family’s health insurance. Um, with mountains of debt and a baby on the way, this isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. We’re a bit freaked out right now. I know in the end, everything will be okay and we’re not going to have to check into the Poor House, but right now, it feels like a giant punch in the gut.

Six months before.

by aaron on December 6th, 2007

Today is December 6th, 2007. My baby’s official due date is June 6th, 2008. I decided to start this blog as an effort to express my thoughts and feelings on this whole expectant fatherhood thing, beginning six months before baby, and continuing (at least) six months after I become a daddy. Hopefully people will read this and maybe other expectant fathers will want to enter into a dialogue about the whole thing. Maybe this blog will become the first blog on Oprah’s Book of the Month Club. Maybe I will be spending the next 12 months talking to myself. Most importantly, I would like my child to one day be able to read my words and understand how big a deal they are to me. I feel like I hardly have a clue about what it takes to be a dad, but it’s not something I take lightly. That’s another thing about this blog: I want it to be something that helps me figure this all out. So whether my audience is one or a hundred, this is me. This is my life from here on out, and I can’t wait.