New Year, New Challenges

By Blake Friis

My wife and I sat in front of the television on New Years Eve, wearing sweatpants and watching Angela from The Office lead throngs of freezing people through an uncomfortable rendition of Gangnam Style.

And so ended the greatest year of my life.

I spend more time looking ahead than reflecting on the past. This used to be necessity rather than strategy. I didn’t make great decisions in early adulthood, and as a result looking back created a lot of regret.

The last several years have been a different story.

Each year since I met my wife has been the best year of my life. I know that sounds like the kind of sappy horseshit teenagers post on their Facebook page, but it’s true. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but we’ve stacked one major life event after another – 2009: met my future wife and graduated; 2010: moved to Dallas, got a job, got engaged; 2011: married and pregnant (in that order!); 2012: bought a house and welcomed our son into the world.

Good-Bye 2012, Hello 2013

As my wife fell asleep on the couch well before midnight and an unlikely pop sensation from South Korea took center stage in Time Square, I began to look ahead to 2013.

It is entirely unlikely we will experience another major life event this year, and that is strangely unsettling. This year we have to focus on micro-level challenges, like making sure our son is wearing pants when we put him to bed so he can’t remove his own diaper and throw a one-person pee circus in his crib.

Weddings and births are amazing experiences, but they are easy compared to real life. Nobody sends a “Congratulations for Not Letting Your Son Recreate the Bellagio Fountain Show with his Penis” card.

This is shaping up to be a year of little fanfare, a year of trying desperately to excel as a father or husband each day.

It is difficult to imagine a more exciting and fulfilling year than 2012, but I look forward to the challenge.