Sometimes, You Do Wonder: Is It Ever Katie And I's Turn?

How the cookie crumbles.

Before we get going here, let me just caveat this shit out for you: I am 44 years old, been married twice, have a handful of friends but probably not a ton of close ones, have a metric boatload of acquaintances including many derived from bars, and never had kids. I wanted to have kids with both women, honestly, but my ex- and I only “tried” for a bit and then got divorced, and my wife and I have been dealing with infertility for four or five years now, which yes, that does end up coloring your worldview in many ways. I cannot lie to you about that. At the same time, my dad is 85 and has liver cancer and lives in NYC. My mom is 81, limited mobility, lives (with my dad) in NYC. I’ve floated them probably 10 places to live down here in Texas, which is cheaper, and they’ve punted every one. People get set in their ways, absolutely, but I am sure if a grandbaby was involved, that transaction might have happened by now. I think about some variation of that probably every day or every other day.

My parents pay about $8,000/month in rent (they sold the place I grew up in) just to live in New York and not really take much advantage of the cultural advantages of NYC. Most of the things I’ve floated them would be $2,000/month or max $3,000. So, come at me and bitch and tell me I should move up there and take care of them, and I’ve considered that too. But from a sheer economic number, the north to south transition seems more reasonable, especially on fixed income.

Anyway, that’s my story in a nutshell. So I did want to be a biological dad at some point, and I probably never will, and elements of that process do hurt, and I would not lie to you about that as a reader of this post. It does color some of how I write and think.

There are your caveats. Now let’s get into this.