“The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love”

Out of my group of friends that I started hanging out with in high school, I am just about the only one, I believe, who didn’t go into blue-collar work as a career, though I did plenty of it growing up. Of this group, I am also one of a very small handful to go to college, not to mention graduate. Once I finally finished up with school — at the seasoned age of 26, thank you — I got a job as a writer. It wasn’t easy work, mind you, but it’s not like I was working on cars, carpentry or construction as my friends were and still are. While their hands were rough and worn from their long days of work that involved a lot of physical exertion, my hands were as calloused as they could get from mowing our postage stamp of a lawn twice a month.

But now, I think I’d like to compare battle scars, please.

After a few months at home with Connor, I am more banged up and bruised than I’ve been in the years since I quite skating (that’s skateboarding, not roller skating, in case you mistook me for a seven-year-old girl). My right knee is aching, I’ve got bite-shaped bruises on my shoulder, I’m limping a little bit, and I’ve got scabs in places where I didn’t know I had places.
But, I’m giving as good as I get. Connor has bruises up and down his spine, thighs and shins (uh, he fell down) and he’s got as many scrapes as I do. He’s a rough and tumble kid, though, so he doesn’t care. He’ll launch himself off of the couch face first, making for a holy-crap-I-think-he-broke-his-neck dismount, then get up laughing, and do it all over again.

Mark my words: one of us is going to be going to the emergency room soon. Place your bets now.