on what my daughter taught me

about pace and confidence

Many say that it’s the role of a parent to be model a mentor and a partner in helping their children discover who they are and show them the way.

These people are idiots.

You see, before children are born, their spirits are waiting outside of us saying shit like:

Check out that fool. I can really fuck with them for a while. Maybe they’ll learn something from me.

That is to say that we choose our parents from beyond the beyond. We’re put here on this earth to teach them something.

Something important about themselves and something important about being human. Something that without the stakes of loving and caring for someone soooo deeply that it forces us to examine every aspect of our being.

Right?

Dr Spook and all the rest of the child psychopatholigists have it all arse backwards.

Luckily, I’m an idiot and I’ve been on the lookout for this for years.

Most of the time?

I don’t get it.

As such, my children have at times grown tired, frustrated and fundamentally enraged with me. This is ok. I’ve been in the same place with my parents.

I think yesterday on my ride to a personal best, one of the lessons that my daughter had for me finally sank in.

Let’s roll things back a bit to last year.

The scene was tense. A years worth of work was on the line. There were no more than a dozen people in the auditorium at DHS. My daughter was on stage presenting the results of her work.

Enrolled in her grade 12 AP research class she was answering questions from the panel of judges she was presenting to.

One of the judges?

They were the kind of fucktard douchenozzel that loves putting young people in their place with difficult, on the spot quesitons.

I can’t remember the question he asked, I only remember thinking, wow, that’s fucked up. What a prick. Who asks shit this diffiuclt?

Well. He did.

My daughter?

She didn’t flinch.

She didn’t budge.

She looked at her papers.

She shuffeled them around a bit.

She made some notes.

People were staring.

The judges looked physically uncomfortable.

There we sat in silence for what seemed like thirty years but must have only been three or four minutes.

Her teacher spoke first, saying her name.

My daughter?

She held up her hand.

Talk to the hand bitch. The face ain’t listening.

That’s not what she said, but she might as well have said that.

I think the judge wanted her to babble on, think on her feet and say her work.

Instead?

She insisted on taking her time.

She insisted on composing her thoughts and her response.

Stubbornly, she insisted that the room move at her speed, not the other way around.

Then she spoke and what came out of her mouth was clear, concise and fully formed. She commanded the room. She took her space, she took her time and delivered the goods in the condition she wanted to when she was bloody well ready.

Me?

I would have stammered and babbled and tried to charm and bullshit my way out of it.

Her?

She insisted on going deeply into what she knew.

She insisted on taking her time.

So…

What the hell does this have to do with me riding my bike seventy five miles?

From my regular training I’ve learned what zone two feels like. I know what zone three feels like.

I know that if I’m spending too much time at the high end of zone three for my heart rate or above into zone four or five, I’m going to bonk out and not be able to finish the ride.

On Sunday, when I hit that personal best though I was riding with Zeke and Nef, I spent much of the day alone.

When they were spinning away up to fifteen minutes ahead of me, I thought of my daughter.

She spent months on her research, training for that moment on stage.

I’ve spent months training on my bike.

She insisted upon moving at her own pace.

I imitated her and moved at the pace that I knew would get me through.

She was confident in her work. She trusted the research she did.

In order to finish, I had to trust in the work that I did.

And the thing that allowed me to let the other two blaze ahead of me was imagining my beautiful, intelligent, incredible daughter on stage, taking her time, commanding the space and delivering beautifully.

Sunday I hit a personal best.

I owe it in large part to my girl.

But I guess that’s what being a parent is all about.

Personal bests.

And children?

They come to us to help us become the best version of ourselves.

They deserve nothing less.

Thanks for choosing us baby.