Every night, I read my son a bedtime story... but tonight I walked towards his room and heard him playing make-believe with his toys.

I just sat at the doorway and just listened to him play out stories with Woody, Buzz, and Rex.

One day those toys will be in a box, the room will be quiet, and I know I'll wish I could hear that tiny narrator voice building his universe again.

Fatherhood has cracked me open in ways nothing else ever could. It has made me softer and stronger at the same time.

More patient.
More aware of time.
More aware of how fast it moves.

I remember life before kids and marriage.

The days felt long and years felt abstract, aimless would be a good word for it.

Now I measure life in shoe sizes.
In pencil marks on the bathroom door.
In the last time he’ll ask me to carry him.

None of this really makes sense unless you have kids.

I remember reading stuff like what I'm writing now and just not thinking intellectually like, "Yeah, kids change you."

It's not that.

It’s a biological, emotional, arguably spiritual rewiring.

You don’t understand how your chest can physically ache when they’re sick.

You don’t understand how a scribbled crayon drawing can feel more valuable than anything you’ve ever purchased in your entire life time a TRILLION.

You can’t explain why time suddenly feels like both a gift and a thief.

Until it’s yours.

Until there’s a little voice in the next room saying “Dad?” and something inside your heart answers before your brain even has time to put it's shoes on.

The best way I've ever heard it described is like this:

When you’re single, your sad days are a -5.
Your happiest days are a 10.

When you’re married, your saddest days might hit -20… and your happiest days hit 20.

But when you have kids?

Your saddest days feel are negative infinity.
And your happiest days are true infinity.

There is nothing more true in the world than this.