Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
"The Fates lead him who will. Him who won't, they drag."
Seneca, ~30 a.d.

I think of the future sometimes.

Most of the time, I'm thinking of the very, very near future. As in, eight hours from now when the project summary comes due or twenty four hours from now when I'm supposed to be on a plane, or five minutes from now when I will have needed to be at a meeting for 15 minutes.

I spend a lot of the remaining time thinking about the past...what went right, what went wrong, and how what went right was probably just something going wrong that went at it wrong. (I am, despite the words of those close to me, not truly a cynic at heart...I am a rampant and disappointed idealist, perhaps, but not truly a cynic). I worry, and worrying for me is a mostly about confusing the near future with a distant past.

But sometimes, I think of the future. The real future.

For me, right now, these moments are occupied wondering about being a dad. I am not a dad, and I have no immediate reason to believe I will soon be a dad. But I think about it a lot...we think about it a lot. For me, it's not a yearning, exactly...not a need...but it feels like a want...like the happy memory of a first crush, it's a quiet and peaceful want that won't quite leave, but doesn't cause much trouble.

My friend Jimmy just had a baby, and my friend Ryan just had a baby. I have met one, and can't wait to meet the other. Two of my best friends in the world are dads. Like, the real kind of dad...like my dad was a dad. I struggle to imagine them as my dad...waking up early to get chocolate Entenman's donuts on Saturday mornings and grunting under the car as he drains engine oil in the hot afternoons. But, for some reason, I can imagine me doing it. They may become their dads, and that is likely a very good thing. And I may become mine...that is also a very good thing. We will learn to clap at recitals and work late for soccer-uniform money and to sit and watch and genuinely love our kids when they do the little things that bring them joy, whether we understand them or not. I hope I have those days. I don't need them just yet, but I hope I get them.

At the same time, I'm surprised at the lack of aching. I think, after two years and some change, I may be finding some peace in the unknowable To-Come. I'm tired of trying to predict it, honestly, and I'm becoming slightly thrilled at my inability to beat it. There is a peace in that...it's strange, but there is.

I don't know what is to come. I don't know if it includes birth, or adoption, or joy, or heartache, or another 50 years of the a marriage better than my tiny imagination would have sketched...with child or without. I don't know. But the peace, perhaps, is in knowing that I'm allowed to stop telling myself I should know.

Peace,
Justin