Last weekend, we celebrated Finn’s sixth birthday. My lucky number, six. When I started writing on this digital notebook, he wasn’t yet two-years-old. That’s some impossible human math right there. And it’s hard to catalogue everything that happens as your kids grow. I can’t fault bloggers and journaling parents for losing steam as their kids get older. Things speed up. Diversify. The tonnage of parenting, after the baby era, continues to gain weight with greater complexity and unyielding momentum.

I’ve always been a fairly nostalgic person. Reflecting, writing and listening to music while I stared off into the distance were my jam. Somehow I made that a thing, despite my lack of observable skill. But it was always about “them.” Of course it was my lens on “them” but nevertheless it was about my son, and then my second son. Of course there was the occasional post about my wife where I took her out of context for the sake of comedy, but having kids was a focal point because it shifted my consciousness in ways nothing else really had.

Getting married felt like a quantum leap in my maturation. Getting a job and paying my bills? It was like playing the Game of Life board game in real life. But kids? That’s something no one can precisely describe in words. I mean, we only have millennia of advice and written words on the subject, and still was have bloggers chipping away at it.

So, there I was looking at a boy I always wanted in my life. I remember being a young man and thinking about fatherhood. I wanted to have fun. To be there. To teach someone what I knew. To learn from them. And I’ve been getting to do all of those things. But the irony is I don’t often think about all of that. For all of my 90s alternative music reflectiveness, I don’t stop to breathe it in. I think about money, work, the next school event, volunteering, how out of shape I feel — anything else than how powerfully simple it is to look into the eyes of someone I helped bring in to the world. And what special, magical thing that is.

Each year, I’ve asked people to write little pieces of wisdom for Finn’s birthday on posts and photos. The advice is usually the same, and it would be interesting to see how the tone of the advice has changed. But there’s a through line. Love. To love, be loved and know love. It’s really cool. And it’s what my heart has always wanted for my sons.

To love, be loved, and know love.