about becoming a dad.

Standing alone in an empty hospital corridor, moments before meeting my son.

I wanted to capture some thoughts, just bits of my brain, as I hear my son cry upstairs as background noise, because he refuses to go down for the night.

I rarely considered having a kid.

It was one of those things that you know, in the back of your head, one hypothetical day you will, but don't know when or in how long.

I always considered the downside of it, though. The what-ifs, the uncertainty - there are so many questions about it, so much so that there are fields of medicine and people who devote their lives to studying and providing answers to uncertain people like me.

My wife mentioned something to me, some time ago, about how she noticed she started to think differently after she turned 30. I don't know the science behind it but I've been curious about that ever since she mentioned it.

Anticipatory nostalgia. Defined as missing the present prematurely before it has become past. Finding myself missing them as they are happening.

Time is linear. The perpetual realization that today, no matter when that is, is the youngest I'll ever be.

The Overview effect 🚀.

Something astronauts experience when they visit space. Researchers have characterized the effect as "a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus".

The most prominent common aspects of personally experiencing the Earth from space are appreciation and perception of beauty, unexpected and even overwhelming emotion, and an increased sense of connection to other people.

The birth of my boy did the trick for me. It had such an impact that I developed an appreciation I didn't have before, not as prominently, anyway. For what would be seen as ordinary - the daily routine, the mundane, the not-so-exciting parts of daily life.

The joy of getting to talk to him. That my voice travels through air, hits his little ear drums to get processed by a part of his tiny brain and makes him smile back at me.

If that isn't magic ✨, I don't know what is.

I wish I had been told about the happiness and overwhelming love I would feel for that tiny human. I regret not meeting him sooner. Without skipping a beat I would choose him all over again.

This is all to say that this experience has changed me.

It's the honor of my life being Nolan's dad.