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.