Regret. I’m not great at this sort of thing.

Kids are complicated. Each one is their own special flavor of messed up, and there’s a great chance, as their parent, that a lot of it is your fault. I’ve got three kids, with three separate and complicated relationships. The complications come from being a parent, yes, but also just being human, and prone to error.

I’ve screwed up each of my kids in their unique ways; a stack of trial and error blunders as they went from small creatures to near fully formed adults – I’ll never be able to completely let myself believe they’ve become. As I’m old now, I realize that no one is a fully formed adult, least of all me.

Cole – my first kid, Kylah my middle monkey, and Matthias who outgrew his nicknames. I love these kids. The simple fact that my base emotion for them is love talks a lot more of who they are as people than who I am as a dad.

But I’m a dad because of these humans.

Cole.

My first kid. I got Cole when he was 8, and I was 30, and I had no idea – at all – how to parent (still don’t). I was awful at it, just terrible. The only saving grace I have with Cole’s childhood was that I was there, making mistakes with the best of intentions. I meant well, and messed up often. Cole is the reason I went from being wary of children, to thinking kids are awesome because he was such an awesome kid.

Kylah.

My first baby. A middle child, like me, and thus subject to helicopter parenting and feelings of over-protection. She’s an empath who feels emotion on a level I just can’t. Time spent with Kylah is cathartic like good therapy. She’s difficult to define, to be honest, because she’s so good at being what people need at the time that they need it. She’s always been like that. She’s emotionally intimidating to a tree stump of emotion like me.

Matthias.

My brave boy. Matthias didn’t like me when he was a baby. He got sick on day one and spent all his time with his mother in the hospital for his first weeks. I was also working on a Congressional campaign when he was born, and wasn’t around when he was awake for his first few weeks, either. Not a great start. Matthias should have been the beneficiary of lessons learned from my time screwing up the other two, but, so, I found all new ways to make mistakes with him, too.

I’m a dad because of these amazing humans that somehow made their way into my life, and make everything better. All I want to do here is tell stories about these three kids of mine, but their stories are theirs to tell, especially when it comes to time spent with me.

Work.

Regrets, I have a few, and most of them have to do with not being present for my kids. I work a lot, even when I’m unemployed, I make work to do because I can not sit still. I missed so many family outings, vacations, moments …

We were poor as hell those first few years. It seemed that no matter what we did, my bad luck and loud mouth never let us get ahead. I spent their formative years in being over worked and underpaid. A victim of my own fear, I was so terrified by the poverty I knew I was responsible for that I would double and triple down on shitty or toxic work opportunities, that I missed so very much.

There’s a lot of unpack here, but, that’s for later.

Regardless, I worked a lot. I made a little money. I won awards. I did great work … all at the expense of being a better parent.

I love my kids.

I am a better person because of them; no matter how much further I have to go, they improve me every time we interact.

I love my kids, even though I still make mistakes.

I love my kids.

I am happy on this father’s day, because of my kids.