You probably don’t know me (or may not care to – that’s ok as I’m doing this for cathartic reasons) but I founded a blog company back in 2003 by starting a lone site about the Oakland Athletics. I, along with my best friend and partner Markos Moulitsas, realized that there was an opportunity to create something much bigger by recruiting other baseball blogs like Athletics Nation but that focused on other teams. To make a relatively long story short, it became wildly successful thanks to a lot of incredible people, a ton of really hard work, some unforeseeable ideas to expand well beyond sports and eventually I had a chance to leave a full-time capacity in the company I started. I wrote something pretty personal about it here.

I chose to do so basically so I could devote myself to being a full-time dad. I wanted to write a blog about my life because I want to share my experiences. I know I’m in a unique position because I can devote myself to being there for my kids at all times. I was able to do that a bit while I was building my company before because I worked from home. But too often my response to the kids asking for my attention was “not now” or “I’m working and I’ll be with you shortly” or on the rare occasion when something was blowing up on the Internetz, such as a scuffle between bloggers, I would actually lose my temper on them because they were too loud, bugging me or just plain making me feel bad by saying things like, “You never have time for anything but your computer.” YEOUCH That’s when I’d hear Cat’s in the Cradle playing in my head and the waves of guilt wash over my shores.

As my kids got older, I have an 11-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy now, I realized that my daughter wasn’t far from being a teenager. There was coming a time when she would begin to hate me or rebel or just become increasingly difficult. I was missing a lot of the few remaining wondrous moments of childhood. And the thing about childhood is, once it’s over, it’s gone. You simply can’t go backwards. Yes, I cared deeply about my company like it was my own family but here was my own family, right under my nose and I wasn’t giving it my full attention. It wasn’t just the job but the fact that I had my passion of sports which also monopolized so much time. Sports was my job, but it was also a lifelong passion that I realized wasn’t necessarily the most important thing to me anymore. My team logos, that unwavering commitment to the group of fans like yourself wasn’t as unwavering as it once was simply because that passion and energy was transferred into these beings that became everything to me.

The time commitment became unacceptable to me if only because I learned a harsh but valuable lesson very early on in my life. My Dad passed away when I was 18 years old of a massive heart attack. He was merely 47 years old.

When you’re a kid, you kind of just believe that your parents are going to be there forever. Great grandparents die. Grandparents sometimes die but your parents are supposed to be nearly immortal. Remember when you used to argue with kids on your street about whose father would win in a fight? We all think our parents are made of metal and steel and simply shut down at night long after you’re asleep because they’re always awake when you wake up. If you’re “dadding” properly, your kids think you are one bad ass man who can protect them from everything. Or at least that’s how it was back in the day.

Yet the fragility of life slapped me hard across the face and made an indelible mark. Maybe it made me more emo than ever before but it also brought about an understanding that those indestructible parental figures aren’t so immortal. And now I was one of them. We are constantly one breath closer to that last one and I thought to myself, “What do they write on your tombstone? It’s Walter Bleszinski, Jr. Beloved husband, father” and any other titles your family should choose: brother, uncle, son, etc. Those are the titles that matter most. Not president, CEO, founder, etc. It was something I wanted to lean into with all my heart and soul.

And that’s what I plan to do here on this site. Share my random thoughts, collections and passions because if I had to include something else outside of husband, father, brother, son, etc. it would likely be writer because it’s something I love. And life is too damn short to not embrace the love.