“I’ve always wanted to be a dad early in life. I want to be energetic and active and mobile. I’d like my parents to experience being grandparents. My dad was thirty-three when I was born, so that’s always been a bit of a benchmark. And unfortunately it just passed by. But it’s not something I have any control over. In every other area of life, I can make progress by putting in work. I can practice. I can gain new skills. But the harder I pursue having a family, the further away it seems. It’s difficult to enter a relationship with children in mind. It complicates things. You ask heavy questions a little earlier than you should. So I just do my best to put it out of my mind. I’m in town for an engagement party right now, and last night I crashed with an old college friend. This morning I helped feed his baby son. I was pretty good at it. He’s a picky eater, so I had to pretend to take bites myself. I had to make funny faces. I had to ‘boop’ him on the nose with the spoon. But I got him to eat his breakfast. And I guess it was the novelty of feeding someone, but the whole experience just rekindled the notion of: ‘I want this for myself.’”
