This post really hit home for me. I was actually thinking the other day how much I'd love to see the parents of my friends and tell them what an impact they had on my life. Most of my childhood friends moved back to the Houston area, and I don't get to see them much. I'm close to Austin, and if I go to Houston it to see my sister and my niece/nephew. Getting a chance to hang out with old friends and their parents would be awesome. Aside from them being the baseball/basketball/soccer coaches of my youth, they would drive us out to the fire station and play basketball with us and 12 other people, go on bike rides out to a golf course and buy us frozen lemonades, go to the nearby school and be All-time QB in a 2 hour game of football. I remember it like it was yesterday. I took that shit for granted, but when I had my first child at the age of 34, I vowed I would be the dad to do those things with my kids and their friends, so that when they all became parents, it would motivate them to do the same and be the dad people remembered.
I'm 45 now, and I have 3 sons. I've coached all but 3-4 seasons of whatever sport they were playing at the time. I've mellowed out over the years in terms of how serious I take it. I'm a competitive person, but this is for them, not me. Be as good as you want to be, take it as seriously as you want to take it, but remember Daddy for making it fun. They're are mostly into soccer these days, and I run my ass off out there with them in drills and scrimmages. I try to take them on bike rides, but they aren't into it as much as me. When it comes to swim parties, I'm the adult that shows up in a bathing suit and plays Marco Polo and lets the kids jump off my shoulders while te adults do their thing. It helps me feel young, but I know at some point they will appreciate it for different reasons.
A week after turning 45 I really hurt my knee jump roping with my 7 year old at a school event for students and their dads. Been putting off an MRI, but it's time. I'm not ready to admit I need to slow down, and hopefully it's fixable and I don't have to slow down. But yea, getting old sucks.