Embracing It

Jesus. I just realized it's been more than two weeks since my last post--nearly five weeks since the incident--and still I feel the need to provide another knee update. I ran about 3/4 of a mile on Monday and was proud of myself. I was home in Steubenville for a walk with Sara and decided to run the uphills and walk the rest, since the uphills are ok. Actually I even ran backwards down one hill too, but I'm not counting that distance. The interesting thing is how naive I was through the whole process about the need to rehab; I just assumed the knee would heal and I'd hop back into running. Well, the knee has 98% healed(1), but the couple weeks of stiff limping sent my too-weak patella into a tailspin, and since I wasn't doing anything to keep those muscles and tendons active, I'm now recovering from a patella problem. Fortunately(2), I had tendonitis in my right patella in college, so now I know how to handle my balky left one.

Now, I would like to address something that I never do, and my never addressing it has been not just a conscious decision but almost a defensive mechanism to keep from embracing what is to be my destiny. That's a lot of bluster there but when you find out what I'm talking about it will make sense.
I don't ever, with anyone, talk about kids. Let's consider why this is:
A. Because I am not a kid
B. Because I don't know many kids.
C. Because my daily routine rarely ever includes kids so why talk about them.
D. Because I am afraid of kids.(3)
Technically, those answers are all correct, but as we all know from the SAT, there is always one best answer, and here it is:
E. Because at some point in the semi-near future I will myself produce a kid, and until that time comes I am not terribly interested in having my conversation be dominated by the topic of kids.

Sara is very much interested in kids ("babies," specifically). She's interested in other people's kids, kids she knows, kids she sees on the street, kids on TV, and kids she will have with me. She has known, for quite a while now, that she wants to have a kid more or less as soon as possible.
I haven't exactly shared this enthusiasm. I don't particularly care for kids. That sounded harsh. I mean, I am not interested by them. Sure, I like a little kid playing with a dog as much as anybody, and I can appreciate an attractive baby, but I don't get much out of them personally. And as for my own kid-having prospects, let's just say that I'm patient.
I haven't liked to talk about kids basically because it's coming closer to a tangible thing in my life. The step between liking/dating/loving to getting married has never really meant terribly much to me. When dealing with your life mate, they're all just labels because it's the same person and the same feelings. Moving into an apartment together was a little step and moving to another city together will be another little step. For some reason (who am I kidding--for giant and very good reasons), the step between where I am now and having a kid seems vast, like here I am now in America, and there I am with a kid in Africa.(4)
It's an idea that has taken and will continue to take time to become real for me.
As a secondary concern, not addressing the kid issue is one last way for me to continue to embrace the collegial part of my life. It's the last domino to fall. Also, not any of my friends would ever really want to hear me or anyone else talk about kids. Kids are what happens to other people, people on the other side of the age divide. We are New Yorkers, after all, and New Yorkers around our age don't have kids.

I don't know why I'm choosing now to mention any of this. I guess I've crossed enough ground and gotten just comfortable enough with the idea that I can say it openly. I don't know exactly when it will happen, but it's gonna happen. I will have a kid with Sara at some point not too far in the future(5). It's kinda nice. I guess I'm a big boy and everything.



1. What the hell do I know? 75%? 99.5%? 83%? The ligaments are better enough that I don't think about them.
2. Fortunate now. At the time, that little injury that popped up in the third race of my junior year cross country season proved to be the first in a series of things that caused that third race to be my last organized competitive race. Alas.
3. This should probably read "kids' parents." I think we can all agree that kids' parents are pretty goddamned awful.
4. Note to unborn, unconceived kid: no, you can't go to Africa. First, it's expensive, and second, it's dangerous. You could get eaten by a lion. But mostly, it's too expensive.
5. No, she isn't pregnant or anything and she isn't going off the pill. I'm being vague. But I'm not talking about several years from now