In the Space Between

FERRIS BUELLER WAS RIGHT.

Life moved fast so I did too. I focused on what was ahead of me and missed what was right in front of me.

Because I was building a business while she was learning to read. Because I climbed the corporate ladder and spent most of my time in New York and London and everywhere else but home. 

Because I said I was doing it for her, which was among the first of countless lies.

There were flashes of respectable fatherhood: parades and Fantasmic! at “the Park” (what we in Orange County call Disneyland). Trips to Dave & Busters on Eat & Play Combo nights; midnight “Harry Potter” releases at Barnes & Noble. One time I rebooked a flight from South Korea so I could get back to Newport Beach in time for her volleyball tournament (I made it.)

But sometimes it feels all too little, so too very late.

Because when she had struggles I had meetings. When she was down I was out. And when I was home I often wasn’t present (she once drew a picture of me for an elementary school assignment — sitting on the couch and working on my laptop.)

I had a career. But if all you have is a career, then you have nothing. 

Now she is 26, almost 27, and on Saturday (Oct. 18) she is getting married. She’s been with her fiancé for a while, like two houses and a dog ago, but this will make things official in the eyes of God and the IRS (feel free to use those interchangeably depending on your beliefs.)

Life moves pretty fast, no doubt about it. I learned the hard way that you can always make more money but you can’t make more time.

And now that I’ve slowed the pace, I realized something else: I may not have been around, physically or emotionally, for every milestone throughout my daughter’s childhood. But we had so many fun, sweet, amazing moments — and that’s all this life is. A series of little moments.

Marriages and milestones are great, and we deserve to enjoy them. But most of life is lived in the space between. Those small moments are the ones that really matter.

I only wish I hadn’t taken so damn long to realize it.

So that’s my advice for Alex and her soon-to-be husband Matt: Be in every moment, big or in the space between. Focus on the present, and you’ll never have to worry about the future or be haunted by the past.

Because to exist is a gift. To find love, as my daughter found love, is a blessing.

And for today — and for however many days I have left — I will choose to live in the space between. For her and for me. I no longer have to wait for life to be perfect because it already is.

Because we will never leave her and she will never leave us. Because she will live far away yet never be gone.

But our kids do grow up. 

And they need to move on.