It seems as though, sometimes, an overlooked fact of parenthood is the abandoning (or at the very least reimagining) of your own dreams. You become (or almost should become) overwhelmed by putting the wants and needs of your family first, so much so that it’s somewhat assumed that your own goals and dreams take a backseat to everything else your life now encompasses. Multiply that fact by a factor of six children, and it’s easy to see how a parent’s dream might not only be deferred, as Langston Hughes suggested, but might actually be lost altogether.
No, this is not me whining about that. I fully understand that putting my family’s needs above my own dreams is part of parenthood. In contrast, I see a growing trend in today’s society where personal ambition often overshadows sacrifice for others, which feels like a loss to me. But that’s a topic for another day. For me, that selflessness tested, and ultimately fueled, my determination to reach a personal goal.
In order to make my point here, I must go back in time to the year 2012, November 18th to be exact. I had just found out recently that I was going to be a dad for the first time. My wife had told me she was expecting only a few weeks prior, and I knew my whole world was changing in ways yet unseen. But on that 18th day of November, as I watched on TV the first edition of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix to be staged at the newly opened Circuit of the Americas (COTA) just outside Austin, TX, I made a silent pledge to myself to somehow make it to the race next year no matter what being a dad brought with it (you see, COTA sits a paltry 97 miles from where I live, and I had driven past the site where it was built many times as I traveled to Austin for various reasons). That day, a dream began.
In 2013, with one child and a relatively low paying job, my dream was deferred for the first time. I watched the race on TV again and made myself the same pledge: next year. 2014 came and went, then 2015, then 2016 and another child, then 2017, then 2018, then 2019 and another child, then 2020 and Covid, and 2021 and another child, then 2022, then 2023 and another child. Then 2024 came, and I once again hopped on the couch to watch the race saying to myself the same thing I had said every year before that: next year.
I distinctly remember the feeling each time I made myself this promise; I felt as though I had let myself down. I knew that, even though the track sat just 97 miles away, it might as well have been on the other side of the world. That’s how slim I felt my chances were of ever making it to COTA. 12 years of dreaming left that particular candle with very little wax or wick.
As Father’s Day 2025 approached, I received an email from COTA, as I do frequently just to tease myself about all of the possibilities of attending something at the track, that stated the upcoming World Endurance Championship Lone Star Le Mans race at COTA in September would have a buy one, get one Father’s Day special on tickets. My curiosity piqued, I called up my brother and asked him what his work schedule looked like for the weekend of the race and if he’d be interested in attending. He checked and all was clear, so we split the cost of the tickets since we were getting a two for one deal.
After the sale was completed and I received the digital tickets on my phone, the strange realization settled in that I was actually going to COTA. It had taken 13 years, but I was actually going in September, not for Formula 1, but for the first time, I would actually get to see the track in person. Something of the one small step for man being taken hit me hard.
I’ll spare you the details of my September WEC experience here, but you can read my reflection on that experience, if you want, on this post here. Suffice it to say, I had been bitten by the COTA racing bug.
On the way home from the Lone Star Le Mans, my brother suggested that we look up tickets for next month’s Formula 1 United States Grand Prix. The Sunday tickets were a tad more than either of us felt comfortable paying, but, and this was a major but at that moment, the Friday practice session tickets were incredibly reasonable. As he dropped me off at home, the price kept jumping around in my head.
I called him a couple days later and basically said, “Look. Your birthday is in December. I want to buy you an early birthday present.” It did not take much convincing to get him to agree, and so, on September 10th, I purchased two tickets to the Friday practice session of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix to be held on October 17th.
Looking back on that moment, that moment when I completed that order and knew tickets were coming my way, I somehow knew that, even though it wasn’t exactly the race that I’d be attending, the decade plus of deferring my dream that had almost died instantly refilled that candle and replaced that wick.
I was going to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX, to see Formula 1 race cars go around the track at an incredibly high rate of speed (that’s what I told my students anyway. Their blank stares were priceless).
The five and a half weeks between the WEC race and the Formula 1 weekend flew by nearly as fast as the cars circle the track. That morning, I imagine that the look on my face must’ve been a mix of kid on Christmas morning and doctoral candidate about to receive their white coat. It was a day of immense satisfaction, to say the least, not only in witnessing the pinnacle of motorsports in person, but also in the fact that I would, after 13 years of repeated “next years,” finally, finally, accomplish a personal goal, a goal that I had thought had all but died. I had reserved myself to the assumption that it just wasn’t meant to happen for whatever reason. I was at peace with that, but every October when the race approached, that same twinge of anxiety crept back in. Then, inevitably, as I watched the end of the race on TV every year, a bigger twinge of anger at allowing myself to not accomplish a goal I set for myself. And that never sat well with me.
So as I sat in awe in the grandstands on Turn 19, as that first car came into view from around Turn 18, as the smell of burning fuel and rubber wafted across the stands, as sparks flew from behind the cars hitting the curbs as they exited the turn, as the roar of the engines penetrated deeply into my ears, I found myself getting oddly emotional. I can’t explain the exact emotion I was feeling, but the realization of a dream 13 years in the making makes for an unforgettable experience. I wish I could explain how I felt, but I can’t. I can only explain the satisfaction of not giving up on something, even if it takes 13 (or more) years to accomplish. It was pure, straight from my heart, rooted in the knowledge that I had not given up and found a way to do the thing that had eluded me for over a decade. It was, for lack of a better term, a magical moment for me.
And so, I guess the point in all of this is this: if something as simple as seeing Formula 1 race cars in action in person is worth waiting 13 years for, there’s got to be something in your life more important than that that’s worth waiting for. Don’t give up on your dreams or goals, no matter what life places in front of you. They might take 13 years to accomplish, and that’s ok. Because that feeling you feel when it finally happens will be unexplainable.
And I think that’s exactly how it should be.
And now, for my first attempt at an accompanying Photo Essay…
Bring Back Big Families 
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