Untethered

When I was much younger than I am today I went on trip to Hawaii with one of my close friends and his family. It was a trip that would remind you of the Adam Sandler movie blended. My friends dad was dating a woman and she was bringing her family. They had separate rooms and we obviously slept in the room with my friends dad. It was the first time I had heard a grown man snore like that, I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there were hogs in our room. I digress....

The point was me and my buddies were given a rented jeep and we would leave the hotel all day and go and explore. One of our adventures consisted of renting a wind surf set up. None of us had any experience wind surfing nor did we even know how to properly set it up. These two friends that I was with are the type of guys that tend to be good at anything they do. So they figured out how to set up the board and walk it down to the beach. It ended up being a mess. They couldn't get up on it and they got pulled all over the water. Eventually a guy with kite board came over and helped then he explained we were in the wrong spot. About this time my friends dad showed up and we explained that it wasn't going well. He found a guy on the beach who had just finished wind surf lessons with another group and he got us lessons with this guy. I don't remember his name but i remember he was probably in his 50's and had skin that looked like he spent a long time out in the sun.

After the couple hours of lessons we were helping him break down all the equipment and put in the trailer. My friends dad started to ask him questions as you do with someone, try to get to know him. The guy explained that he was never married and didn't have any kids. He would spend half his year in Hawaii and the other half in Alaska, sometimes giving lessons and some of it he had other jobs he had done over the years. I thought about that life style a lot over the next few days, at the time and in my young understanding of the world. My view at that point was you go and get a degree, get a job, get married and have kids. I was taught that someone like that was a "dead beat" they were irresponsible. That was the world view my parents had instilled in me.

Looking now as a tired dad who is grinding every day to make a living raise kids and do what I can to help out around the house. I realize I can look at that life and think the grass is greener but I know that he may be looking at someone else thinking that. My take away from that is to teach my kids that they don't have to follow the path that the world tells them. They are ok if they want to go out and do something like this for a time and if it is longer season to be ok with that. There is no road map for a tired dad.