we're still here

Friends, being an adult kind of stinks. Right now, it feels like one side of the country is on fire and the other side is flooded — literally and metaphorically — and in the middle are a bunch of people just trying to get by in a world gone mad. I would say I haven't written because I've been busy, and that would be true enough, because there's always work and kids and routines and schedules and unexpected things that have to be dealt with, but the real truth is that it's been hard to find any kind of inspiration lately. The nightly news is (almost) always bad, and the routine sometimes grinds me down so much that by the end of the day I feel like there's not much me left, and certainly not enough to find something to write about.

But today it occurred to me that this blog is for the boys, and part of what we hope to accomplish is preparing them to be adults, and part of being an adult is slogging through all the sadness of the world, all the days and all the things that grind you down, and then getting up the next morning to slog through it all again. Boys, it's not all vacations and family parties and outings to the botanical garden. That stuff is wonderful, but sometimes getting to it is ... not necessarily hard, but overwhelming and unrelenting. But you get up each day, and you get through it, and eventually you get to a day where there's a vacation, or a family party, or a trip to the botanical garden, or a glimpse of the ocean. And if you're smart, you'll understand that those days make getting through all the other ones worthwhile.

And while I'm giving advice, boys (and all the rest of you dear readers): The best thing you can do for yourself in this life is to find someone good to go through it with. It doesn't matter if that person is a friend, a romantic partner, or someone you don't want to pin a label on but couldn't live without (or, in the case of your dad, all of the above). What matters is that you have a person who will support you. Who will listen to your ideas and ask how to help make them happen. Who will match you silly for silly, nerdy for nerdy, serious for serious. And most importantly, who will be right next to you through all the days, and make them all seem just a little bit easier.

So yeah, we're still here, and we'll get back your regularly scheduled program of funny anecdotes and visits to exciting places soon. In the meantime, thanks for slogging with us.