• 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.

  • Parental Evolution

    Becoming somebody’s beginning is something that nothing in life can prepare you for.

    I’m so aware of how unoriginal this experience is—billions of people have done it, are doing it—but it’s also the most personal thing I’ve ever lived through. That contradiction is wild. It’s ordinary, but it’s cosmic.

    My wife and I were saying the other day how fast the first six weeks of our son’s life have gone. But at the same time, it feels like we’ve never really lived without him. Like he’s always been here, folded into the shape of who we were, slowly emerging.

    People gave me all kinds of advice. Everyone has their version of what it’s going to be like. The most vivid one I remember is someone saying, “It’s like a grenade goes off in your bedroom.” Which… fair. But also: a bleak metaphor.

    I prefer to think of it as an evolution.
    Kind of like a Pokémon.

    You and your partner evolve almost overnight—from some final form of adulthood you thought you’d reached—into something new. Something nobody else can quite train you for. You become a person who a human being needs to survive. Not just survive, but to become whole.

    If you don’t do right by them, they won’t thrive.
    They’ll be hungry, or cold, or feel alone in a world that’s supposed to feel warm and held.

    So you do it all. Feed them. Clean them. Dress them. Entertain them. Read the instructions of the world and try to translate it into something soft and safe. You think about everything in their life—and somehow, you try not to get too caught up in the future.

    You live in the moment, even when it’s two in the morning and you’ve forgotten what day it is.

    It’s just such a beautifully complex situation for one of the most tried, tested, and ancient experiences in the history of humankind.

    And still, it feels like something brand new.
    Because it’s ours.