A Different Stage in Life

I am very excited to tell you that one of my absolute favorite bloggers is Becoming SuperMommy today.  Or rather, SuperDaddy.  Kyle of The Kopp Twins manages to make me laugh and get me all teary eyed on a regular basis.  And of course his twin girls are adorable and brilliant and I never tire of watching them grow vicariously through their father.  Plus, he occasionally posts things like this. Here's to parenthood seen from the Daddy side!

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A Different Stage in Life

My whole life all I ever wanted was an Oscar. Literally, since the age of 7 my entire purpose was that goal. Save for a couple years in high school where I thought I needed to be a jock to avoid getting beat up, I was drama geek extraordinaire. I recall traveling Europe around the age of 19 with some friends. I kept a journal of the daily adventures (3 guys, 5 weeks. … plenty of those). Every entry had some little part to do with my future career. I couldn’t watch a movie preview with out fantasizing about my turn up there on that screen. I remember a government class in college where all I highlighted in my textbook during one lecture were the words “just act”. When I graduated high school they gave me this porcelain statuette of a woman someone had found at a Good Will store. They said it was to keep my mantle warm until Oscar came along. So you can see I had one thing on the brain and one thing only. When Gina entered my world she was behind me 100%. She never doubted me. Therefore I never doubted myself either. But then something happened. Something I’ve never understood fully. Gina was 3 months pregnant with our first daughter. Unfortunately the baby did not survive the pregnancy; but that’s a sad tale for another time. We were out on a harbor cruise in San Diego celebrating our anniversary and a thought occurred to me: I hadn’t thought about my career in a while. In fact, I hadn’t thought about my career in 3 months exactly. I hadn’t auditioned. I hadn’t submitted resumes. And I pinpointed it to one moment. It was an audition for a short film. One of hundreds I’d been to. I walked in the lobby and for the first time I saw the packed room for what it was. It was a warehouse of clones. It was 25, 30, 40 of us and we were just the same. We were all tall and lean and “All-American”. We each had a resume a mile long. We all had classical training and could do an array of accents the world over. We were all perfect for this role. We were all exactly the same. And we were all clueless to it. Except for me. I wasn’t like them. Not any more. Because that day I wasn’t thinking about my first Academy Awards acceptance speech. I wasn’t thinking about my big break or how I could tweak my signature to make it easier when giving autographs. I was thinking about my beautiful wife and the beautiful baby she had inside her and all I wanted at that moment was to be home with them. My mom used to tell me when you wake up in the morning, the first thing that jumps in to your head, that’s what you are. It used to be “actor”. Every morning. But it changed. I haven’t thought “actor” in a long, long time now. Now as my eyes open in the early morning light (which I’m lucky if there is any because I get up way too early for a sane person) the only thing I think is “Dad”. And that makes me smile more than “actor” ever did. On that harbor cruise that night I told Gina that I was done. I’d lost my passion and without passion I never stood a chance in that career. Anyways, I needed something that provided more consistently, something that was more on a 9 to 5 pace. I couldn’t spend any more Thursday nights in a Hollywood lobby wishing I was at home with my family. I needed to be there more than anywhere else. So we settled on law and two months later I was nose deep in case briefs. 3 years later I’m still nose deep in them, but I do it because I know it’ll take care of them. I’ll never win an Academy Award, and the slight cynicism left in me makes sure I never bother to watch the ceremony. But on October 20^th, 2009 I received the greatest award ever conceived: my daughters. That night I held two bald little statues that screamed and cried, that grasped on to my outstretch fingers and begged me to love them. I’ve never seen a statuette do that before. And I did. I loved them more than I ever thought I could ever love anything. And come December I’ll be receiving my third "award". So that puts me right on par with Mr. Hanks and Mr. Nicholson as far as I see it. I won’t get the opportunity to stand at a podium and give a speech. … but that’s probably for the best. If it’s anything like the last time, I’ll be left speechless anyway.