I Got Another Round

There are two pictures I keep looking at.

The first one is from the Philippines. I’m forty-five, holding Christopher and Alexa, my first two babies. Shaved head, no beard, tattoos newer than they are now. The flowers behind us are bright the way only tropical flowers are bright.

The second one is from a couple of years ago. Raven on one side. Alexander on the other. Big white beard. Crocs on Raven’s feet. Leaves on the ground. Colorado. I’m sixty in that picture. Sixty-one now.

In my head, I’m still the guy in the first picture.

Same basic dude. Same wiring. Same belief that if the kids are with me, we can probably figure it out. Same instinct to grab the babies, make a plan, and assume the rest will get handled.

Then I see the second picture and think: who the fuck is that old dude?

Because the outside has changed. Half the time I look like a grandfather who stole somebody’s kids.

Except they’re mine.

That’s the part I still can’t get over. I got another round.

Not a do-over. I don’t like that word for this. Christopher and Alexa weren’t practice kids. They got the dad I was then, and I love them for surviving him. They’re nearly grown now, which is exactly what was supposed to happen.

But Raven and Alexander showed up late and changed the whole map. They made it more wonderful than I’d imagined possible. They also made it impossible to pretend I’m still playing the same game.

The first time, I was trying to be a good dad inside the life that was already running. Work. Bills. School. Weekends. Get through the week. Trust the normal path because the normal path was already under my feet.

This time, I want to try something else.

Not because the first time was wrong. Just because I’m older now, and age gives you something if you’re paying attention. It makes it harder to pretend childhood is long.

It isn’t.

It feels long on a Tuesday night when somebody won’t sleep and somebody else is crying because the blue cup is in the dishwasher. From a distance, it’s a door opening and closing.

I know that now. So with Raven and Alexander, I don’t want to just run the same program again and hope the default plan accidentally builds the kind of people I’m trying to raise.

I want to build the life first. Then fit the school, the work, the travel, the money, and the routines around that.

Here’s the team.

Me: sixty-one, public school teacher, domain investor, old dad, trying to build enough runway to make the last big chapter count.

Raven: four, almost five if you ask her, already negotiating with the future.

Alexander: two, mostly powered by snacks, volume, and whatever object he should not currently be holding.

Their mom: part of the family, part of the story, still figuring out what her version of all this looks like.

Christopher and Alexa: the first babies, nearly grown, proof that childhood doesn’t wait around for you to understand it.

Here’s what we’re going to try.

When I retire in about seven years, Raven and Alexander and I are going to start moving.

Not fast. Fast travel is just stress with better scenery.

Slow.

North America by road. Camping, small towns, national parks, long drives, cheap meals, bad weather, wrong turns, learning how to be useful outside.

The rest of the world in longer stays. Apartments. Grocery stores. Walkable neighborhoods. The same bakery enough times that the person behind the counter starts to recognize the kids.

Not vacation. Life, somewhere else.

Raven and Alexander are Filipino, American, and Irish citizens. Three passports each. The Irish one alone opens up Europe. They were born into a bigger map than I was, and I’d like them to actually use it.

Languages open the same kind of doors. Spanish landed in our laps by accident. We hadn’t even heard of the bilingual preschool until right before we won the lottery for a spot. No plan. Just a door that opened.

When a door opens like that, you walk through it. If Raven and Alexander actually grow up speaking it, that’s most of Latin America, Spain, and a big chunk of the US they can move through without being tourists.

That’s the build.

But the build isn’t the point. The point is the life. I want them to grow up capable. Capable of ordering food in a language that isn’t theirs, setting up camp in the rain, recovering from a missed train, talking to a stranger without flinching. I want them to know their family, their countries, their luck. I want them to see me trying.

That may be the real difference between the two pictures.

In the first one, I was younger and thought I had time to figure it out as we went.

In the second one, I’m older and know I don’t.

But I’m still the same guy in some stubborn part of my head.

Same guy, different game. Older dad. Younger kids. Shorter runway. Clearer eyes.

And somehow, even with the beard and the mirror asking who the fuck that old dude is, I still think we can take the world by storm.