Once upon a time

Once upon a time, it was possible to tune in to hockey on any given night, on any night the hometown Senators were in action, and be entertained, enthused, enthralled by the boys in black, or red, or white. These days, they wear black, and red, and white, a retro jersey that harkens back to a time before my time, and boy do they look good in those snazzy new suits. A shame that their new duds can do little to mask the dud hockey team these Senators have become. There is no joy in Mudville, for Casey has struck out.

Once upon a time, I could never remember to carry a cell phone. Anywhere. It was an accessory I could do without. These days, I carry an iPhone. Everywhere. It is an accessory I could still probably do without, but one that has become my favourite gadget, toy, absurdly overpriced but thoroughly worth every penny piece of 21st century technology.  

Once upon a time, my boy Kirby and I would banter back and forth in the blogsphere, united by a shared passion for the things that make us tick--our babes, our babies, the games we play, the game we love, the written word, the words that elicit smiles and frowns, and that prompt two dudes who have never met, whose two worlds are so drastically different yet so strikingly the same, to forge a friendship over a keyboard and a somewhat crappy blogging application. These days, I notice a month after the fact that my boy Kirby left me a comment a month ago that deserved a retort, but that got none, except here, now, where I am letting it be known, to Kirby (and to Michelle too), that I am still reading the comings-and-goings of the Kirby Krew, and appreciate that you reciprocate, despite my dodgy dalliances with what I do here.

Once upon a time, I would hit the couch running the minute dinner was done, and spend the evening watching Friends, Friends and more Friends, so tired I was from being a young, single, 20-something man-child. These days, I am up at five, work all day, pick up the kids, tend to them, bathe them, put them to bed, and just generally be the father I am supposed to be, before hitting the home gym running once the rugrats are in bed, so I can spend an hour, or more, night after night, powering through a P90X program that I never would have, or could have, survived when I was that tired, and young, and single, 20-something man-child. 

Once upon a time, I feared not the implications of putting a disclocated shoulder back in its place with my own personal pull of the painful appendage. These days, I fear for the damage I may have done on the far-too-many occasions where machismo won out over everything else, and eagerly anticipate the day when that impossibly unreachable surgeon cuts me up to fix me. 

Once upon a time, I blogged with some semblance of regularity, rarely going even a week without whipping up a post--even an itty, bitty, witty one--about the mundane or the meaningful, the funny or the fishy. These days, I try and I try and I try to find the fodder that could form the next, best, brilliantly put together piece that will keep me coming back with the stunning semblance of regularity that once upon a time was a fixture up in here. 

It used to come easy, but now it feels hard. Forced. Perhaps the rigours of work, and working out, and fatherhood, and figuring myself out, have naturally caused C-o-a-B to come second, or is it third or fourth or fifth? Who knows? Who cares? For as I would proudly proclaim as a far from 'getting any' single, very single, 20-something man-child, 'I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week'. 

It's a revisionist view that seemed entirely appropriate, once upon a time, but that seems entirely insufficient now. 

For as I have learned, as a 'getting it with regularity' happily married near mid-thirties man, quality and quantity can co-exist, no matter the medium, the mechanism, the manner in which they come together. 

Words to live by, for the next time the end begins with once upon a time.