i stopped writing here a few years ago because my life completely changed.

i put in a token post about once a year, in the vain hope that i could rekindle a dead journal and get excited about writing again, but the new demands that were placed on me were too consuming to give myself up to the same schedule as before.

My wife and i had a baby, and my posts narrowed to a trickle. Then we had another, and they stopped altogether. In between, i left my job and started my own company - technically our third baby. And yea, there was much nipple-sucking and cleaning up poop and vomit. And that was just the new company.

So i’m back, more than a year after my last post, to put in my time, and to consider what it would be to keep writing. i used to write very often for the company - every day, at one point - until i realized there wasn’t any money to be made in it. There’s far more value in me writing posts here. If there’s one thing this journal does for me, it’s that it is a recorded history of my life and attitudes as i travel through it. Some stuff has changed, but i’m generally the same person i was when i began. For a relentless self-improver, this is not great news.

i’m still overweight. i’m still unkind. And my ambition still outstrips my actual abilities. Now add to that the fact that i fear i’m a lousy father, and my self-loathing enters a new dimension: time. It’s one thing to take a snapshot of yourself at some point in your life and to dream that you’ll become a better human being at some point in the future. It’s a different thing entirely to keep revisiting the same broken, disappointing individual year after year. i’m like Ebenezer Scrooge without the miraculous conversion. And lately, i’m thinking about death more than i ever did.

Remember that scene in the Disney version of A Christmas Carol where Daisy Duck is dancing to the fiddle music and you swear that if you paused the VCR at exactly the right moment that you could see her undies? … Okay … more to the point, do you remember that scene where Pete, as the Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come points to an open grave, and Scrooge asks him whose grave it is, and Pete lights a match and it has Scrooge’s name on it, and the music peaks and Scrooge freaks out, and Pete laughs and pats him on the back and shoves him in, and then Scrooge falls through this bottomless pit and does a few somersaults and winds up in his own bed?

And you swear that if you paused the VCR at exactly the right moment during that somersault, you could see his McDuck?

i was no fool, even age six. i knew that there would one day be a tombstone with my name on it, and that didn’t bother me. i was raised a Christian, and i was constantly filled with these upbeat stories of going to heaven. What - me worry?

And i still believe that. But the eventuality of my passing bothers me a lot more now that i consider the disarray that an untimely departure will wreak on my young family. i mean, my wife has a strong back, so she can plow … but my little girls? At ages 1 and 4, an honest day’s work in the sun would do them in. These kinds of thoughts keep me awake at night.

If i were to be absolutely honest with myself, i’d admit that i don’t enjoy being a father nearly as much as i hoped i would. Just like taking a job in a cake factory, all i could think about was having all the cake that i could eat. In reality, a cake factory job kinda sucks as much as any other difficult, mind-numbing menial job. And every once in a blue moon, you get cake.

i feel that every once in a blue moon with my oldest, i get cake. But the rest of the time, she’s a very loud, very demanding and very obnoxious 4-year-old. She’s rubbed me the wrong way since she was a baby. She would never stay still for cuddles, always cried, always complained. She’s rarely nice to be around. This problem is compounded by the fact that i only ever see her after i get home from work, which is her witching hour. And witch she does.

The younger one is all cuddles and sweetness. She’s like a little Ewok. But most of the time, i’m trying to keep the oldest one from impaling the cats with BBQ skewers or yelling at her to stop blowing her nose on the teevee that i don’t put enough time or energy into the cute little muffin. i always pictured sitting down with my child and teaching. That’s what i wanted to do. i wanted to teach that kid all about the sun and moon and stars, about science and nature, about why soda pop fizzed and about what koala bears ate for breakfast. But whenever the tall, bony one and i sit together and i try to show her a YouTube video about some amazing animal, or try to help her count, she gives me this fake yawn and says “Daddy, i’m too tired to learn.”

She’s SO not! Believe me! 4-year-olds are such lousy liars.

In business, i’m feeling very alone. My only employee just quit in the middle of a big project - something about being adverse to my unreasonable demands, which included sitting in a comfy chair in a temperature-controlled office near the subway line, and working on a fun project with no deadline, with all the free Diet Pepsi he could handle (Diet Pepsi - his pick, not mine). i’ve been trying to get a trusted colleague involved in the company for some time, and the fact that i’m pulling teeth to do it, after surviving three years in the black on my own steam, give me pause.

In trying to convince him to partner with me, i used this analogy to compare his life at a full-time job with mine as an entrepreneur:

He is driving down a wide divided highway in a very large Oldsmobile, wearing a thick sweater, a helmet and kneepads. The car has dual airbags and is painted bright orange. Despite the illusion of safety, his car could fly off the road at any moment and kill him.

i am going through life straddling a missile. It zips wildly through the air, very nearly crashing into every damned thing, with no straight course and no target in sight. Every so often, the missile will whip around a corner and i’ll catch a glimpse of fabulous riches that i can’t quite grasp. And around other corners, there are angry mobs with pitchforks and shotguns trained on my face. And then, predictably, i die.

And as my lifeless body is lowered into my grave, you swear that if you paused the VCR at exactly the right moment, you could see my underpants.