Week 5, 2025 - Birth

Song of the week:

Thoughts

I thought I would start this one by addressing last week's quite alarming post on anxiety. Which was really about imposter syndrome. But I even lather imposter syndrome into anxiousness! One week has past after a few weeks of having a lot of anxiety at work. And when I note things down here, it's really an impetus to get something done about it. And I did. I met with all of my more senior key stakeholders and got rubber to meet the road. I even somewhat accidentally had my annual review early with my actual boss. And not only did everything go well, I had a very senior C-level exec ensure I wasn't having doubts or leaving. Which is nice, but also proof that I was manifesting some sort of destiny with whatever anxiety was in my head.

Alls well that ends well.

This week I'm postulating in a very different direction. Last night, on January 31st, one of my close friends' wife gave birth to their second son. Which takes him off the scene for the next few months, anyway! And Nine Inch Nails playing a gig in Ireland for the first time in about 20 years won't help him at all as that's one of our collective favourites.

And one day later, today, February first, my second son celebrates his third birthday. We're celebrating by being down in our holiday place (to make sure it survived the bad weather, frankly!) and trying to potty train a very stubborn boy. Which brings the tally of stubborn boys in this house to three.

But as quickly as he's hit 3, I've hit 40. So has my wife. I celebrated my birthday in early January, which is a wonderful time to do it. As a kid I could negotiate bigger Christmas gifts by merging events. As an adult I can hide because no one wants to do anything fun or spend any money in early Jan.

Life is happening. But I don't feel like it's slipping by, passing us or being wasted. We are so active, busy (in a good way), engaged with our careers and focused on our kids that I feel like every minute counts, and we're happy for it. I'm excited to see the kids get older and more independent and help steer them through their probably stupid decisions. I'm excited to bring their experiences to my own vicariously. I've already been quoting the idea that they won't see an ATM as an ATM in the future. Much like I don't see a phonebooth as a place to make phone calls today; it's for ads and wifi.

Every day is a new adventure. A disgusting adventure as you potty train a toddler. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Week 5, 2025 - Birth

Song of the week:

Thoughts

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