Okay, I’ve got my blogging hoodie on-time to blog! Oh alright, it’s not actually a dedicated blogwriting hooded sweatshirt, but it’s cold down here in the basement.
The continuing saga of my burgeoning self-confidence keeps developing in strange and sometimes bizarre directions. Earlier today, for example, I did some sample questions from the LSAT (Law School Admission Test). For fun. Evidently, planning for a future of novel-writing, charity work, and political involvement isn’t daunting enough for the man with brand new confidence. To be honest, I have never considered studying law before, and I’m not sure why. I do love rules, and arguing about them. I don’t know if I am in any way serious about going to Law school, but it sure is fun to think ‘yeah I could do that. I could be a lawyer’. As this post’s title suggests, I am open to the possibility that this is a slightly early mid-life crisis (would 36 be too early for a mid-life crisis?). Then again, I don’t feel any kind of fear about my life passing me by, and I have no desire for a sports car or mistress.
For the longest time, I had no sense of the future in front of me. Everything was about the present and I lived in an almost entirely reactive mode of behaviour. It blew my mind when one day I realized that Max would be at school within 2 years and I would have the whole weekday to dedicate to my own pursuits. Suddenly I had a sense of the future and I could actually make plans that went past what I was going to make for dinner. And then, during the election, a local candidate mentioned that he was taking his son to vote for the first time, and suddenly the notion that in 15 years I could possibly run in an election of some sort and Max could vote for me popped into my head. I assume the next career aspiration will be either astronaut or ninja.
I remember a time when I was standing in his room, trying to rock him to sleep, and I thought I would never manage it. Now he’s three and sleeping all by himself through the night. During the early months of Max’s life, I couldn’t imagine doing anything more than just holding on and trying to keep it together. Now, as he gets older and more self-reliant, and we all get better and more efficient at the business of family life, I’m finding myself with a surplus of mental energy. We’re not exhausted by the end of the day any more. It’s a good but strange feeling to look around at 8:30PM and realize you’ve already finished everything you had planned to do that day. All of a sudden, you have idle hands and ill-advised fantasies of being a doctor lawyer ninja astronaut.
Chris Loblaw, Author 
Love your article. You are finding depth of thought that come only to those who are willing to seek something in life more than they see at the moment. You are a wonderful dad, good husband and talented in many ways I am sure. Ways you have not yet even dreamed of. Go for the gusto. Before my husband died he told me one day he so admired the way I went headlong into something new, something that scared me,but needed to be done. I thanked him and said it was only because I knew he was there to catch me if I faltered. Well, now I must do it alone and it is scarey – but now I must do it and will as long as I can because he trusted me to handle what ever I needed to do. Gather your youth about you, find a dream and follow it, you will not be sorry.
Love Mom2
“doctor lawyer ninja astronaut” – now I know what I want to be when my head clears of all this baby stuff! At the moment I can’t think beyond having a tidy house and drinking a cup of coffee from start to finish – all at once.