We never really stop worrying about our kids even when they’re adults.

It’s a lot like wearing a heart monitor that goes off at all times of the day and night alerting you to pray for at least one of them at that moment.

I just woke from a nightmare about my kids and my fatherly superstition alerted me to take pause. Of course, I can’t risk a 1am text or a call but I can always risk a prayer. They’re entirely unaware I spend these times tuning frequencies to their private channels to spy if they might be hurt, happy, worried, in harm’s way or just in secret need of something no one else may understand, save the one who’s known them since before they were born.
I’ll have no need to teach them this parental peculiarity. They’ll learn to trust this phenomenon all by themselves when we are long gone and their own are away at school, asleep down the hall, or on a midnight road of crazy drivers protected only by the angels we’ve dispatched to their mercy by knee from our midnight bedsides.

Kids may be all grown up but they’ll never outgrow our duties and responsibilities to psychically worry and silently intervene as I am, and perhaps you are, right now at this very moment.

Today is just another day, but I have my suspicions.

A fresh beginning to a new year, a clean page on life’s calendar, a symbolic start to better intentions, clarity in focus, or maybe a simple sentimental morning to contemplate the parade route of your life. A day off work, extra time to wipe slates and imagine how the new year might unfold. Some will wake desperate for aspirin and coffee, football distractions or to clean up wild night messes before sleeping away the day’s remains from which they only recently arrived home.

But I suspect more than a sober few will be thinking deeper thoughts from time to time today. Plans for self-restraint, to be a little nicer, quit a bad habit or start one better. For today’s curious and contemplative minds the options are limitless. So, applause to those making use of this new day as a personal prompt for positive change, at least in thought, if not in deed. It’s a good day for it. Some require an external catalyst like a nodal event or an arbitrary date of a year to be propelled into deeper thoughts and richer inner lives. Shocking or startling, they shake us to our cores begging for change, forcing us once again into the awful truth: We waited for something to force our hand, but also the glorious redemption that the only difference between last year’s regrets and this year’s successes is another day, and how we use it.#LifeMeansSoMuch#LMSM

I could pull drama out of most any hat I own today but today isn’t about me now is it? The only drama befitting this day is about young couple with a newborn who brought light and hope into a darkened world, act one scene one, and whose story would be told everywhere anyone would listen, believe and follow on a path to life everlasting.

So pipe down about old uncle Joe’s manners, the burnt cinnamon rolls, what you didn’t get from Santa or whatever story you’ve come up with to one up the greatest one ever told. Today is not about them, me or you except for what we all do with the awesome fact that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him will live forever. 2

Now give up the drama and go get a real life. Literally.

It’s not called a merry Christmas for nothing.

I never used to be like this.

I’d wake up anxious, ruled by ‘what ifs’ of the day ahead and what to do to defend against consequences of the yet unknown. It’s a miracle how things have changed.
For these many years since I first acquiesced to the fact I’m not in charge, my first waking thoughts are now less ‘what if?’ and a lot more ‘maybe today!’ What a hopeful difference in my morning outlook.
I’m not sure exactly when I pivoted from viewing time and unfolding experience as the enemy instead of my comrade and frankly, I don’t wonder much about it anymore since the view is so much better looking with life as a heavenly menu of possibilities versus dodging the anxious unknowns.
But at some divine moment, anxiety turned away to reveal anticipation, its friendlier counterpart. And mornings haven’t been the same since.
Looking expectantly to the day’s unexpected revelations sure beats blind strategizing against them as foreboding enemies.
There’s an untapped power in ‘maybe today’ thinking and a good morning is only what you make of it. Try plugging into the power of expectancy and today might just be yours for the taking.

These days, staying power is not my strong suit, especially at parties.

Nor is small talk, dancing, drinking or tuxedos. I’m in bed by 7 most nights and already a couple hours tucked two sheets in while others are still out getting their three sheets on.
Parties were once calendared in pen at least twice weekly until one day many years back when I made the brutal self-discovery that I’m not the man I used to be. And fortunately so.
I was the life of the party and also its casualty.
I thrived on attention and made myself the center of it often when I wasn’t. Insecurities compensated for ego in sometimes unimaginable ways.
I tried way too hard to be liked by others mostly because I didn’t like myself. Wearing lampshades would send me home in the wee hours with a false sense I was a treasured friend to many, when in reality I was likely just a poorly behaved but tolerated nuisance, and even more likely just pitied.
But one day several years ago very early in my 12 step program, another addict shared his own similar embarrassing epiphany and his story stopped me cold, as addict’s stories often do.
I had a very long and very deep cry over countless embarrassing recollections of myself at parties past.
Eventually, I finally began liking myself.
Sitting on the sidelines gradually became as just as satisfying as all my years in centerfield had tried so foolishly to be.
Private conversations with a few in attendance became more preferable than grabbing microphones and lampshades to prove some personal point to myself that I was cool.
Growing up took much longer in life than I ever expected, but like so many times before, it took an honest addict at a meeting to be the messenger I didn’t know I desperately needed.
Tonight I’m dressing up and going to a Christmas party. I still don’t drink but I may dance, I’ll probably chat with a few people and I’ll be quite comfortable in my own skin.
And no one there will ever know what it took me to get to this point except that guy who saw me crying after his story at a recovery meeting years ago whose name I don’t remember but whose words I’ll never forget.