Save Ferris...

The other day I was walking my six year old to school and I started to freak out. First of all, when did she turn six? I put my arm around her and she said, "we're not on a date!" She didn't want me to walk her right up to the gate at school, and she didn't even look back at me as she went off to play. Is it possible that I've already lost those precious years? Soon it's cell phones, and text messages, and stay out of my room...

It was a beautiful snowy morning and as I strolled home through my snobby, yuppy neighborhood. Most of the residents are blue collar-types, but have risen above the usual stereotypes and pay grades in order to buy a better life. It doesn't, however, change the attitude, or behavior. There are still Saturdays filled with the roaring of engines and white hairy bellies exposed all over the driveways. Suddenly it struck me....is this it?

So many of us become content, and that's good. That's on the way to happy. Happy is difficult.Content is pretty good considering. When you have kids the times in between work and\or parenting and\or dance class, and etc, goes extremely fast. It isn't the time with kids that goes racing by it's the time without. Most young parents can probably tell you on one hand the amount of times they have been sans enfants.  For me it was over a year ago when I went to Vancouver for 8 days. Before that...it was a Sunday afternoon in May. The weird thing for me is the idea of getting comfortable. I don't do well with that, I'd rather continue to try new things, see new things and hopefully never think that revving my Corvette that I love more than my wife in diveway is some sort of celebration of life.

I could picture myself ten years down the road talking about lawn care with the neighbors, and preparing to put the winter tires on. Over using the word cottage come spring and pontificating about the players the Maple Leafs need to get to that "next level". It's nice. It's real, but is it me?

As I got home in time to watch my 2 year old throw everything down the stairs in a new version of the game he invented, "destroy everything" I flipped on AMC just in time to see the opening scene of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  What struck me wasn't the sentiment that you have to take the time to slow down once in a while, or else life will just pass you by, but the fact that when Matthew Broderick played that famous character he was ten years older than his on-screen persona. The most famous teen was a mid-twenties dude! John Hughes took a chance...

So did Broderick. As did Ferris!

It got me thinking, maybe I should show some balls like Hughes, and Broderick, and Ferris. This isn't it for me. I don't fit the mold here. I find myself fighting so hard to not be like anyone around me, that I'm not even me! So I've decided to do something else...to try something new...to think like I'm 27, not 37.

John Hughes has brought us some of the greatest, inspirational movies of all time. They spoke to a generation that seemed lost and truthfully helped us understand ourselves. For the first time in a long time, I feel like Ferris is talking to me. I am him, and he is me...

The message I hear is, " you might try saving yourself"