In theory, I am the man of the house. The king of the castle. It’s my way or the highway. In theory. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I am painfully aware of the fact that I am fourth in our chain of command. In the unlikely event that a decision needs to be made when Andrea, Tyler and Kailey are all unavailable, I am fully prepared to step up and make the tough choices. For the most part, Andrea does a masterful job of including me in the decision making process, politely allowing me to blather on incessantly about my opinions, before we ultimately “go a different direction”.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but as I look around our house – “my castle” – I can’t help but notice that all traces of pre-married Zach are gone. Let me be clear, I am not saying this is a bad thing, just an interesting observation. After all, my first apartment consisted of a TV, a mattress and an oversized recliner I called Big Blue.

Despite being, without question, the most comfortable chair in the world and the only thing (other than my rugged good looks and charming personality) that I brought to the marriage, Big Blue didn’t make the cut and is no longer with us.

From what I remember, “we” decided to go a different direction.

In the early years of marriage, I struggled with trying to control everything. From which direction the toilet paper should roll to, believe it or not, how to put groceries away, I wanted things done my way. After all, prior to getting married, the only person I had to worry about was myself, so I was used to always getting my way. I quickly learned that my way or the highway wasn’t particularly conducive to a healthy relationship.

Thankfully, as I have grown, I have also learned to be much more flexible. On occasion, I still try to put my foot down and exercise my “man of the house” authority, but that is rare. Most of the time it is for something trivial, like when I told Andrea that I didn’t want our refrigerator covered with a bunch of “junk” when we became parents. I thought it looked trashy when people did that.

Clearly, we decided to go a different direction. Now, I am the first one to put up anything even remotely associated with either Tyler or Kailey. I prefer the term “proud parent” to “trashy”.

Or like the time we were deciding between leather or cloth seats for our new, family-friendly car a few years ago. Our salesman suggested that leather might be a better way to go given all of the food that little ones spill in their car seats. I laughed. Not something that I had to worry about I told him, since there would be absolutely no eating in my car at any time. Too messy. I think the appropriate term is naïve.

While recently cleaning the backseat of the car, I vacuumed out roughly 1,254 pounds of Cheerios, 17 half eaten cheese sticks, enough raisins to start a winery, half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a small garden salad. I can’t help but laugh at myself when I think of how adamant I was about my “no eating in the car” policy. Many times, the back of the car is the only place I can get the kids to eat anything. Plus, since I am pretty sure the salad was mine, I really can’t get that upset.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it when things go the way I had planned. But most of the time things don’t work out that way, and since I have learned to be more flexible, it’s okay. In fact, when things don’t end up going my way and I have to adjust, more often than not, it works out better than even I had planned.

I don’t really think of myself as old, after all I am only 35. But I also know that I am not that young anymore. I am kind of caught in some awkward middle ground where I still think I can do the same things I did when I was younger, but every time I try I end up sore and/or in a doctor’s office. When I was young (and limber) sports were easy. I would casually throw on a pair of sneakers and immediately jump right into playing anything and everything. Now, I have to be a little more selective with my athletic endeavors. I really don’t think about my age much, but lately, I must admit that I have caught myself on more than one occasion thinking wistfully about the good old days. It’s usually after one of my E – that’s right, E – league adult basketball games when my lungs are burning and my legs feel like jelly.

Middle age kind of snuck up on me. Sure, I was no longer tearing up the basketball court, but at least I wasn’t one of those really old guys who just wouldn’t admit it’s time to hang up the sneakers. I didn’t really pay too much attention to the little warning signs like the slightly receding hairline, the occasional ankle surgery (never needed that when I was younger) or the fact that I would limp around for a couple of days after every game. Middle age tried to warn me, but I wasn’t paying attention.

It wasn’t until a recent trip to the mall that I was confronted with the reality that I am, in fact, middle aged. I was in the market for a new pair of jeans and stumbled across Abercrombie and Fitch. I had never shopped at an A&F before, but I had heard of the brand and knew that they were considered cool. I decided to check it out. I have not been the same since.

I should have realized that I was too old for the store when, after entering, my initial thoughts were “why so dark” and “why is the music so loud”, but I didn’t. I pressed on. Even the gigantic billboard of two incredibly fit young men with muscles in places where I didn’t know muscles existed didn’t stop me.

Apparently the bulk of A&F’s target market is on the slender side, so finding a pair of 36×32 jeans proved to be a challenge. Ultimately, I found a pair and headed to the dressing room. I was not aware of what “skinny jeans” were, but after trying valiantly to squeeze into a pair of A&F skinny jeans for the better part of 10 minutes, confirming that I had the right size and nearly passing out after checking the price tag, I decided that A&F was not the store for me.

I blame neither Mr. Abercrombie nor Mr. Fitch for so painfully slamming my age down my throat via their “skinny jeans”. The reality of the situation is that I am no longer 18 years old. I can no longer do, nor wear, some of the things that I used to be able to. As someone who now is largely outfitted by Costco and Target, I will probably never pass for “cool” again. Those days are behind me. When I was younger, I spent too much time worrying about what other people thought about me and trying to be cool. Now, I am just trying to enjoy the ride and have fun with my wife, my kids and my friends. To me, middle age isn’t looking so bad!

On June 1st, 2009, I became a statistic. I am now one of the dots that you see on all of the news charts representing the current unemployment rate.

I feel like I am a valuable employee, I just have an uncanny knack for picking problematic career opportunities. I like to think that I alone was not responsible for the collapse of Enron or the homebuilding industry, but while one layoff might be a coincidence, two is bordering on becoming a theme.

Losing my job wasn’t completely unexpected. In fact, I had been kind of expecting it for months before it finally came. The homebuilder that I worked for was struggling, but the few of us remaining were committed to fighting for survival as long as possible. We fought the good fight, but eventually had to admit defeat and shut our doors. As the heavy burden of unemployment settled upon my shoulders, I felt like a failure. Let the job searching begin!

I think I would rather shoot off my toes one at a time than hunt for a job. Trying to convince someone that you are good enough has never been a strong suit of mine. Trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life just leads to frustration because I just don’t know. Plus, there is an indignant little part of me that feels above completing any standard employment application. I don’t know where it comes from, but I actually get a little annoyed when I have to write in my high school address or convert my previous salary into an hourly rate for the form. I thought my days of “standard application forms” were behind me. I think I just get a little defensive because my “career path” seems to be heading in the wrong direction.

I’ve never really had a master plan, but being 35 and unemployed was definitely not on any agenda of mine. Friends and family have been supportive, universally commenting on the fact that they firmly believe I “will land on my feet”. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of the “blessing in disguise”, “every cloud has a silver lining” approach to empathy, but I do take solace in the fact that apparently I will be standing firmly upright when the dust settles on this economic turmoil.

The truth of the matter is that sometimes my “NOW” isn’t all that great. Being unemployed for the past six months has been a difficult and stressful challenge, but the great part is that I get to control my attitude. Sure, there are days when I wallow around in self-pity – and my pajamas – wondering why I can’t even get a response to my application for an “entry level position” (talk about a boost to the ego), but for the most part I still feel thankful and blessed. During this unemployed phase of my life, I have been able to spend quality time with my family, work on projects that I am passionate about and get an obscenely high score on my son’s WebKinz computer game. I know that soon enough I will be working again, and I won’t have the free time to take Tyler to school, Kailey to gymnastics or even enjoy an afternoon round of family putt-putt golf.

It just boils down to attitude. When I focus on being thankful for what I have, I don’t seem to waste much time worrying about what I don’t.

Like a lot of people, I have always been a worrier. Worrying is natural. In moderation, worrying is even healthy. It forces us to prepare for the unknowns of the future and helps keep us safe. However, given my own personal baggage, mine is not a world of moderation. I worried about everything – career, family, health, safety, money, everything. I guess when you grow up feeling like you are never good enough, you tend to worry a lot about trying to be good enough. For me, it got to a point where I rarely enjoyed myself in any situation. What do people think about me? Are my kids going to get hurt? What did she mean when she said that? Is my boss mad at me? Will we have enough money for the future? Am I going to get that done on time? You name it and I obsessively worried about it. In moderation, worrying is healthy. When it dominates your life, it is not.

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person. I am also pretty insecure – another fun token from childhood – so considering myself to be “fairly intelligent” feels a bit blasphemous. That being said, I have spent a small fortune on schooling, getting both a BS and a Masters, so solely on the basis of “book-learnin”, I stand by my claim. It was obvious to me that spending the bulk of my time worrying about some unknown future was not the best use of my time. But understanding that and doing something about it are two totally different things. In my head, I knew that I was being ridiculous and that I was wasting too many moments stressed about the future, but in my heart I just couldn’t stop.

In the summer of 2008, my vibrant, dynamic son Tyler

had a health scare. It wasn’t a “running a 100 degree fever” health scare, it was a “worried we might lose him” health scare and it rocked my world.

Here is a picture of the poor little guy after his second MRI in less than 10 days:

This changed my life.  Prior to this, I had gotten to the point of not even enjoying going to the park as a family because I would be on pins and needles the entire time worrying about him getting hurt. It was pathetic. Now, there I was, praying like crazy for more time with him, more time to enjoy every minute with him. It was during this terrible time that I realized that all my worrying had done nothing for him or me. All it had accomplished was stealing precious moments that could have been spent enjoying the moment. Life goes by so incredibly fast. I decided that I needed to live NOW. Easier said than done, but at least I am on the right path.

I had been wasting my life worrying about everything. I learned that, while worrying is natural, it really doesn’t serve much purpose. Kids are going to be kids. People are going to be people. It is okay to worry, but you can’t live in a world dominated by fear. Short of living in a bubble – which I have seriously considered for my whole family given the various flus, tragedies, viruses, etc. floating around – you have to live your life. Mistakes will be made, elbows will get skinned, bones will be broken. But hasn’t it been said that we learn the most from our mistakes? Life is precious and time is short. Enjoy it!