Last year I know I freaked out a bit about stagnating, but I ultimately think I wasn’t ready to mature or be older. I mean, I can’t say that I’m there yet, but I think I may be getting a chance to be halfway there. It won’t be much longer before I’m an uncle. That’s crazy.
Was I expecting to learn that my brother was having a kid back in October? No way. I mean, the invitation was a little weird and out of character, but I wasn’t expecting that kind of bombshell to be dropped on me.
I use bombshell as a descriptor, but we all know that the extent to which this will actively affect my life will not necessarily be huge. I’m not personally responsible for a new life, my brother and sister-in-law are. It’s just….crazy. I mean, I know my brother is three years older than me and we’re both closer to 30 than we are to 20, but still! He’s a guy I remember at age eight!
When you think about it, it’s kind of weird that I think of this as a huge event. I’ve got plenty of cousins with kids. The oldest of them are older than my youngest siblings, so I’ve had a long time to be used to people of my generation having kids, but this is my brother, man.
I also find that my sense of responsibility is much greater than it was when I was in undergrad. I mean, maybe it has to do with being older or maybe it has to do with occasionally caring for my younger siblings, but I have no fears about taking care of young kids. Just six years ago I would have been paralyzed with fear that a kid would choke on something or I’d drop her or something like that. Now it feels like it’s not a big deal at all.
The other thing I’ve learned, mostly from Eric, is how exciting and scary the prospect of parenthood is. I’ve seen his emotions range on the spectrum of ecstatic to terrified and that makes a lot of sense. His life is about to change tremendously and I have a lot of respect for him and Danielle for taking on what amounts one of the most important roles, on an individual level, for people.
There’s a long way to go before the kid is up and walking around and talking, but how mind blowing is it that something that started as two cells merged together is gonna have a personality and a voice and she’s gonna call me “Tio”. Bizarre.
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