The notion that I'm going to be a parent inside of the next 24 hours is truly terrifying. The introspection that it's given rise to is perhaps moreso.
For better or worse, I'm probably not the best reflection of the upbringing and education that I had to work with. I'm lazy, disorganized to a fault and generally the only way to get me to do something to the best of my abilities is to have someone else relying on it. Of course, this makes me at least passing decent at my job, but only because there are 4-6 people reporting to me and another 2 or 3 dozen to whom my work has some sort of impact. If it's just me, myself and I, I don't do such a hot job. Really, I'm a lot like Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities - I can muster almost limitless effort on the behalf of those I care about but only marginal effort on my own behalf.
And now, it's me and Anna... and even there, I'm certainly not taking care of myself like I should in order to be around in 20 years. Not that Anna needs me to take care of her, but I have a responsibility to her and now to our daughter and I'm nowhere near likely to be able to carry it out if I don't change something. I mean, let's face facts: I'm morbidly obese, a Type 2 Diabetic who takes bad care of himself, I guzzle Coke Zero like it's my job, I haven't seen the doctor in at least 6 months... hell, I can't even take care of my teeth very well. And now there's going to be a little person relying on me to get my act together in order to provide for her.
And that's where things get interesting... because it's not just the provide for her part. I mean, while I have an intellectual grasp of personal finance, this whole inability to set my actions to the march that my rational mind dictates isn't exactly a new theme... but I can usually fake my way to better finance through stumbling along the path of career development. No, the truly scary part is that there's going to be a little person doing some significant modeling of who she's going to be based off of who I am. And I can't honestly say that I'm a huge fan of who I am a great deal of the time. I wouldn't exactly put me forward as a role model... much less a freaking parent and basis for understanding reality.
Have kids with more screwed up parents than me lived and survived? Certainly... but I'd like to hope that my kid would have parents a benefit to personality development rather than an obstacle to overcome... and I suppose that's where Anna comes in. On two fronts, really: as a far better role model than I could ever hope to be and as a mitigating factor for my own behavior.
Because, let's face it... and people who have known me before and after the initial impact of Anna on my personality (and on-going sanding off of my rougher edges) can attest that pre-Anna, I was a real piece of work. Still am, really, but nowhere near to the extent that I was prior to that. So something's going to have to give, but for now, I think I'm done with this self-flagellation... so, telling though this is, I'm going to go ahead and quote Jules from Pulp Fiction in closing with the notion that I feel it to be at least somewhat autobiographical:
Maybe it means: you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9mm here, he's the Shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the Valley of Darkness. Or, it could mean: you're the righteous man, and I'm the Shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that, but that shit ain't the truth. The truth is: you're the weak, and I am the tyranny of evil men. But, I'm tryin', Ringo, I'm trying real hard to be the Shepherd.Posted by Vengeful Cynic at March 24, 2010 11:21 PM | TrackBack