Days Like This

Van Morrison said “my mamma told me, there’ll be days like this”. The Celtic folk tune was written in 1995 and will forever remain a classic. The Irish musician is no stranger to instant hits but few songwriters are able to take a simple life message and make it resonate through song and rhyme. 

The tune is about both good days and bad days. We all have them and life comes in waves; when it rains it pours; blessings and curses come in threes. We’ve found a number of ways to explain the nature of our lives as humans. 

“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes” - Alexander Dumas

I think of life as a pendulum. I am constantly swinging from one side to another. Happy… sad. Angry to peace. Life is good. Life is bad. Things are going to work out! Things didn’t work out. The pendulum can swing in a minute, year, or a decade. You never know when life is about to head in the other direction. 

As a father I am constantly thinking about how to live a life full of back and forth. Especially as a single dad. My girls constantly go back and forth. But a part of their life is going to continue to go back and forth in all areas not just from mom to dad. 

As I live this ride from one side of the clock to the other my goal is to find out how to spend as much time right in the middle. That's where balance is. The pendulum is necessary for balance to exist. Unless of course you can find some way to stop time. The hanging orb must travel to keep time or life moving forward. I’d love to explore metaphysical thoughts about how time exists differently and not at all in other places in the universe but that is for another time. 

The quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, Russell Wilson gave a Ted Talk about positive mental thinking. He said that he tries to spend as much time in “neutral”. After winning the Super Bowl he also experienced the loss of his father. Two huge life swings in what seemed like an instant. The thing that keeps him going however, is the mindset of balance. To live in a place where you can manage the movement of life. 

This is mindfulness. 

It is so important that we practice it but also that we learn from others and how they practice it. My daughters and I spent our father's day weekend with another dad and his boys. We had one of the best weekends as a family that I can remember. I was no longer outnumbered by women, the kids entertained each other and the girls got to experience new opportunities and new people. They got to see another dad be a dad. I got to spend time with a friend. 

I learned too. I learned the importance of patience and that I’m not alone in my experiences as a single dad… both good and bad. 

My belief is there is an unspoken brotherhood among dads. They are for the most part pretty much on the same page and not concerned with how other dads are parenting their kids. Dad’s root for each other. 

When at the park and your kid throws a tantrum because he or she can’t have more candy or the swing isn’t “swingy” enough or my favorite... “it’s boring”. The response, whether irritated or loving, patient or impatient is typically felt with a dad nod. If you can catch the eyes of another father witnessing the dilemma your toddler, 5 year old or 7 going on 17 year old, has put you in, you’ll probably get a dad nod. 

 A dad nod is a sense of reassurance. It says,  “hey man, I get it. Hold strong”. Give dad nods to other dads when you see them checking out of the store with a circus in tow. Boom- Dad-nod. See a dad arguing with his kids to eat their dinner at a restaurant? Dad-nod. Complaining siblings on what was supposed to be a fun trip to the park? Dad-nod. 

But dad nods are a small part of parenting. Raising children is magical. It is an endless adventure. And because it is a continual routine of back and forth it is a lot of effort to maintain balance in a home. That home might be tense and full of yelling in one minute but loving and kind in the next. Kids learn from what they see. So, you have to live in the moments that are happening and find your way back to center. 

That’s the lesson when Van sings,

“When it's not always raining there’ll be days like this.

When no ones complaining there’ll be days like this

When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch

Well my mamma told me there’ll be days like this.”

But dad’s are the ones to show us how to live them.