Want to feel old? Or, maybe more appropriately, want to make sure I feel old? Our friends at classicnerd.com reminded me that the number one song from August 1991 was Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. There’s so much to unpack from this earbug time machine. It was the the lead single to the soundtrack for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner, yet another adaptation of the English folklore tale no one asked for. It’s also quintessential Bryan Adams, sounding as if he recorded the song midway through a carton of Marlboros while suffering a bad case of laryngitis. Finally, the track is 31 years ago, legal to drink and make me audibly groan when standing up out of a seated position.
Where does time go? Yesterday, I was playing beer pong in college without a care (or dollar) in the world. Today, I dropped my two daughters off at school and actually uttered the comment, “we needed the rain.” The beginning of the school season used to be marked by excitement, a little bit of anxiety and the annoyances of waking up too early Monday through Friday. Now, I might be more nervous than my girls, ensuring the teachers don’t think we feed them Top Ramen for every meal and make them sleep outside. Let’s not even get started on packing their lunch box with food they won’t eat, hair styles that don’t last one hour, or the morning fake illnesses.
Living in this parallel universe of school is hard to fathom. Though my kids are barely in Kindergarten, I’m compelled to brush up on my trigonometry, periodic table and world capitals (you know, super pertinent information for our daily life). I not only want to be the cool dad, I want to be the smart dad, too. Pathetic. Their looks of disappointment while we try to color inside the lines tells the whole story.
To think I have a solid 14 more years of this before the kids ship off to college is downright scary. Class projects, homework, tests, detention, school musicals… I suppose this is the journey we all had to take, making mistakes and learning how to be better every day. I just hope I don’t embarrass my girls so much they make me drop them off two blocks away from school.
“Hey girls, how do you say goodbye to a calculus teacher? Calc-u-later.”
Too late.