The Modernish Father

As many of you learned last week, The Wife is going back to school. Well, not exactly back to school. It’s more like school is coming to her.

She’s been accepted into the online Master’s program in Criminal Justice at Arizona State. Since the whole thing is done through the magic of the Interwebz, we won’t have to move to Tempe or make any sort of major life adjustments other than tightening the budget and learning to schedule time more effectively in the evenings. And I suppose the kids will have to learn how to eat ramen.

I just want to say publicly how proud I am of The Wife; not just for getting accepted into the program, but also for having the determination to continue chasing her dreams. We’re both  arriving at the point in our lives where it becomes easy to just settle in and decide we’ve done enough to provide a good life for ourselves and the kids. It’s also the point when a lot of parents stop pursuing their own goals and start living vicariously through their children.

Of course, we’re going to support both of our kids and do whatever we can to help them achieve their goals as they grow up, but that doesn’t mean that we have to give up on our own dreams. It’d be easy for us to hunker down, bide our time, pay the bills and the start the slow but sure countdown towards retirement at some depressingly distant date. It’s decidedly less easy to continue doing all those routine “life things” while taking on new challenges and continuing to expand our own horizons.

The Wife has a lot of work ahead of her, but I know she’s up to the challenge.

And my big dream? Buying an old school bus and touring the country as the leader of a Mike + The Mechanics tribute band that plays semi-pro baseball and also solves crimes. Or something like that. We may also be part-time movie stuntmen. I haven’t worked out all the details yet.