• Measuring Goodbyes

    What happens when you start counting what really counts

    About four weeks ago—somewhere in the hazy early days of new parenthood—I picked up a book I’d been meaning to read: The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. It sat next to our bed, within arm’s reach while the baby slept beside us. I thought it was a timely one. It was.

    In one part, Bloom talks about the moment he realised how few times he might see his parents again. Not in terms of years, but in visits. If they lived another 20 or 30 years, and he only saw them once or twice a year—well, do the maths. The number was alarmingly small. Finite. A countdown, not a horizon.

    That idea hasn’t left me.

    Now, in the quiet moments—when I’m pacing the dining table with our baby in my arms, or watching his chest rise and fall in sleep—I find myself doing my own mental sums.

    How many more Mother’s Days will my mum be here to receive flowers and eat pastries together?

    How many anniversaries with my wife will we get to spend exploring a new culture together—wandering along coastlines, ordering food we can’t pronounce, and sharing that feeling of being exactly where we’re meant to be?

    And maybe one day, how many more birthdays will I be part of for my son—before he’d rather spend it with his mates, with me in the background as chauffeu?

    It’s not just family. I think about friends too. I’ve already lost people I love. Some didn’t make it to their twenties. Others, not to their thirties. The idea that we’ve all got unlimited time is… generous at best. Who might not make their forties?

    Even the friends who are still here—how many times will we actually see each other again? Once a year? That means maybe five more catch-ups before life intervenes, or distance stretches too far, or… who knows?

    And what about us? My wife and I talk about living abroad—giving our child new languages, new worlds. But if we go, what happens to everyone else’s numbers? The grandparents, the godparents, the friends who might now only see us in photos or fleeting visits. How does our decision to move shift their remaining moments with us?

    It’s strange how something so simple—just thinking in terms of how many times instead of how many years—can change the entire texture of life.

    It doesn’t make me anxious. It makes me intentional.

    It reminds me to linger. To say yes more. To call back.

    To book the trip. To send the text. To pay attention.

    We all carry invisible countdowns. Most of them we’ll never see. But every once in a while, we get a glimpse. And when we do, we owe it to ourselves—and the people we love—to look straight at it and not turn away.

    These are the single-digit years.

    And they matter more than we think.

  • “You Wouldn’t Understand, You Don’t Have Children” — And Now I Do.

    There’s a phrase that used to make my skin crawl.

    “You wouldn’t understand — you don’t have children.”

    It always felt like the highest form of condescension. Dismissive. Wounding. As though empathy was something you either earned through parenthood or didn’t possess at all. As if my experiences, my capacity to care, or my exhaustion didn’t count.

    Worse still, it ignored something deeper: that not everyone without children chose that. That for many, it’s a source of grief, not a lifestyle. And so that phrase, delivered casually in conversation, could be so unconstructive. Even hurtful.

    And yet — five weeks into being a father, I now understand where that sentiment comes from. Not the delivery of it. But the deeper truth it’s trying — and often failing — to communicate.

    Because something happens — something huge. You go from being an autonomous adult with your own rhythm, overlapping with your partner’s, to suddenly… everything changing. You walk into a hospital as two people. You walk out as three. And your entire world flips.

    Every minute of every day is now tied to this tiny human. Your brain doesn’t just shift — it rewires. Priorities you thought were non-negotiable suddenly feel less urgent. Work, emails, even basic things like meals and sleep — they get squeezed to the edges while you deal with this immediate, constant, beautiful chaos.

    And it’s not a choice — it’s instinct. A complete internal shift you can’t pre-empt or fully imagine until it’s happening to you.

    So no, I’d never say “you wouldn’t understand” to someone. I know how alienating that can be. I’d try something more honest. Like:

    “There are things about parenthood that don’t land until you’re in the trenches — not because you lack empathy, but because your whole frame of reference changes overnight. I didn’t get it before either.”

    It’s humbling, this shift. And I think if I ever talk about it with someone on the other side of it — the ‘before’ side — I’ll do so with a lot more softness than I was once shown.

    Because now I see both sides. And that perspective’s taken me by surprise.