The Gradual Process Of Realizing You’ll Never Be A Dad

It’s complicated, and hard, but it’s just something some people deal with.

I got shitfaced yesterday. Had some beers at Old Chicago, then a place by my house, then bought a six-pack as I typed out some emails. I don’t really per se know why I decided to get shitfaced yesterday, but I think it has to do with the gradual reality of “I’ll never be a dad.” It’s a messy emotional field to run through.

I have this random memory that pops for me sometimes: I am 21 or 22, sitting in the Senior Class Committee office of Georgetown University. It’s a random Thursday night. I think we were about to go out or something. My friend, in one of those random deep moments that can occur throughout college that you don’t realize is deep at the time, asks me what I want to do with my life. At the time, I wanted to be a journalist (which maybe in some vague way I kinda am now, so that’s cool?) and work for ESPN (which I did). So I said stuff about that, but I also said I wanted to be married to a nice lady and have three daughters. I don’t know why I was anti-son at this random moment 21 years ago, but hey, them’s the breaks.

In the intervening two decades, a lot of shit has happened — as tends to, i.e. “life.” I definitely drank more than I should have: