Belated

Let me begin by saying Happy Birthday, Aunt Carol.

They say when a person loses his sight, that his other senses are heightened. I wonder if it works that way for social skills as well. If, by ignoring one aspect of your life, it will make you better, more competent in another. My day to day life is so full of me that I seem to let almost everything else fall to the side, or so it feels. I’m not saying that what I do is extraordinary, anything that anyone else doesn’t or wouldn’t do given the same circumstances, but from the minute I wake up in the morning I’m responsible for my kids – feeding, dressing, homework gathered up, out the door to school – from there I go to work, to a business with my name on it and which I am solely responsible for. After work it’s home to laundry and dishes and baths and bedtime. While all of this is happening, people around me, friends and family, are achieving goals, reaching milestones and suffering problems that I’m not there for. Sometimes they’re having significant birthdays, as Aunt Carol, one of my favorite people in the world, did two days ago, the day I meant to call her and say, simply, Happy Birthday. But I didn’t. I forgot. What makes this even more unbelievable is that my family, being so large, has its own calendar with everyone’s birthday listed. In the back of this calendar is a listing of everyone’s contact information. So what’s the excuse? I was busy. That’s always the excuse. Work, kids. Is it a good excuse? Not at all. People deal with all of this on a daily basis, it’s called Life. Some people, obviously, have a better handle on theirs.

Again, I’m not looking for pity. I try to be a good father, husband and businessman, but there are times when it all becomes overwhelming. I’m lucky to have a partner in all of this, though I tend to heap the burden on my own shoulders, unnecessarily, most of the time. I would like to be there for the milestones of today, no matter how large or small, instead of concentrating on what needs to be done tomorrow. These are times when the best thing I could do is just step back and listen to the music instead of feeling the need to be the conductor.