Travel and A New Dad.
(C) 2019 Phillip Gross
There are two absolute truths I have identified as a father.
Every single cliche thing ever said about kids is absolutely true.
Your love, and ability to love, grows exponentially when you have a child. Your heart will grow to fill a universe you never knew could exist
It wasn’t but a few days after my paternity leave ended, that I found myself back on the road. Work travel by that moment in my career, had become par for the course. Part necessity, part fun. A chance to discover something new, develop business relationships, and at best earn some additional frequent flyer miles. However, this was no ordinary Monday. It was the first trip taking me away from my newly formed family. So far away from what, whom and where I now loved most.
I was in Vegas and I was homesick. Neither a phone call, nor the video call home brought ease.
When you first share with the world and the ones you love that you are expecting, so much information is passed your way. Words of encouragement, support and formidable advice quickly flow out of knowing mouths. “Do this”, “be that dad”, “take the evening shift”, “kids are the best thing since sliced bread”, “you won’t need that”, “you will need this”. There are tongue in cheek remarks from single friends and strange questions asked i.e “what school are you going to go to?!”. Like High School Calculus, so much of the shared knowledge doesn’t really seem to matter until you know why you need to know it.
An interesting reflection my own father shared with me early on was, you would think no one had ever had children before the way first time parents are. From the early attempts at Diaper changes to worrying about every single breathe