My Life Stories

Flying Kites

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

It’s the last wave and smile. 

It’s the oversized backpack filled with snow pants. 

It’s independence.

I drove to work crying today, again. 

It’s not a daily occurrence. It’s something that happens on certain days. 

You see, due to a parental scheduling error, my son has been without before school care at his elementary school since the New Year. 

As with most things in life, there are benefits and drawbacks to this situation.

Good: Kids get to sleep in a little. They choose not to of course, but they have the option.

Bad: Mom and Dad get to work later than they’d like.

Good: More time with the kids at home. They have breakfast, watch shows, and getting out the door is a little less hectic.

Very Bad: Dad has to drop off with other parents for kindergarten.

Dropping the kids off is typically Mom’s job, mostly due to work schedule and location.

If you’re a parent, you are most likely thinking, oh it’s a nightmare waiting in line every day to drop off your child for school.

I am not here to tell you that you’re wrong, but it’s not what makes it bad for this Dad.

I’ve come to realize through almost six years of being a parent that your children are like kites. 

Yes, kites, stick with me on this one.

In the beginning, you work to get your kite airborne. Pushing for milestones. Taking ultimate pride in the milestones they hit early. Rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, talking, potty training, these are things that mean the wind is picking up and your kite is going to fly.

The first day we dropped my oldest off at daycare he was three months old. I wore sunglasses the entire time, hoping that they would hide the uncertainty, sadness, and tears on my face.

In reality, it made me look like a douchebag. More accurately, a sad douchebag.

That was the day that it struck me. The end of the line that holds my kite, is not attached to the spool in my hand. The line is roughly 18 years long.

The day will come when the last bit of line detaches and I’ll be left with an empty spool with nothing to do but watch the kite fly on its own.

This has created a severe cognitive dissonance for me. 

There are things we do as parents that feel taxing at that moment.

Pushing them on the swing, for example. When you are doing it for the thousandth time, it becomes so monotonous. So, you start educating them on how to swing by themselves. Thinking, if I let out a little more line off the spool, I won’t have to stand here and push them anymore. 

You tell them how to move their legs. They do it wrong. You try to correct. They do it wrong and get frustrated. Then you get frustrated that they won’t try. You say, “if you’re not going to have fun at the park then I guess we’ll just go home.” They cry, so you tell them they can play for 5 more minutes, convinced you’ll have the only child that never learned how to use a swing.

Then one day, out of nowhere, they can swing on their own. That section of line that you so desperately wanted off the spool is off. There is no getting it back. The pang hits you in the sternum when you realize, you never have to push them on the swing again. 

The problem is, the word “have” changed to get.

You’re not sure how it happened but it is there as clear as day. 

You never get to push them on the swing again. 

All you want is to pull the line back in just a little. Just for a minute. Just one more time. 

The spool doesn’t work like that on these kites. 

This is why this morning… and yesterday morning… and a few more over the past week and a half, I drove out of the parking lot with tears rolling down my cheeks. I look at other parents driving out of the parking lot muttering “what the fuck is wrong with you people?” as I notice no one else is crying.

They are moving on with their day and not having an existential crisis.

After he stops, smiles, and waves to me (ugh, the wave is a punch to the gut), he runs to catch up with friends with his backpack bouncing back and forth on his shoulders. I remind myself that this is a good thing. It’s good that he doesn’t need me to walk him in, find his locker, put his backpack away, and go to class. I am doing a pretty good job at flying my kite. 

It helps a little. Eventually, the book that I am listening to in the car distracts me and the sadness fades.

What’s more, I have two kites, which allows me to recognize these important spots in my daughter’s line and cherish them. 

However, too soon, she’ll be the one smiling and waving as she walks into kindergarten. 

All I can do is continue to fly my kites. Keep them away from trees, houses, and powerlines so when the day comes, they’re able to soar.

Until that day, should you need me, I’ll be the idiot crying while flying kites.

Cheers.

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Hot Timmy Summer

/ Tim Severson / 1 Comment

I’ve hated myself for a long time.

Wait, let me rephrase that.

I’ve hated my body for as long as I can remember.

I can remember hating the start of football as a kid because the pants never fit right. I’ve hated shopping my entire life because trying on clothes would give me anxiety and leave me in a depressed state. 

I’ve had stretch marks on my stomach since high school. 

Then college happened. People talked about “the freshman 15”, but my body misheard that and went after the freshman 50. 

Since college, I have battled with my weight constantly. Losing some, gaining more back. A decade ago I lost 60 pounds and gained it all back (and some). 

I got to a point where I justified it. 

The worst part of my day was getting out of the shower and being forced to see myself. I told myself, “this is just who you are.” The echoes of people calling me “big guy” and other names pointed out the fact that not only was I big, but everyone knew it. 

I even got my Covid vaccine early because I was obese. Talk about bitter-sweet.

I have pretended to be confident in myself and how I look every day.

Fake it ‘til you make it. Right?

Then, on April 12th as I was sitting down to eat a plate full of air-fried popcorn shrimp and mozzarella sticks, I saw an ad for Noom. 

It advertised a psychological approach to weight loss. Something that piqued my interest as a guy with a Psychology degree. 

One of the first questions was, “what is your goal weight?”

A lot less than my weight now, I thought.

They wanted a specific number. I knew that if it was going to work, I needed to be specific in a meaningful way. Something that was special to me. 

The neat thing about my birthday, October 8th. Is that is the day that I nervously asked my wife to go out with me when we were in Junior High. 

Now I can’t be certain about this, but my educated guess was that I have not weighed less than 200 pounds since my freshman year of high school in 1999. And since college, I have essentially been pregnant on and off like an Irish Catholic woman. 

It clicked.

I am going to weigh 199.8 pounds on my birthday.

That meant that the task in front of me was to lose 64 pounds in 179 days. 

What was the first thing I did?

I ate the mozzarella sticks and popcorn shrimp, duh. 

A last meal of sorts. I’ve got to say it was almost a sexual experience. I dream about that “meal” sometimes.

I got obsessed with my weight loss goal. If you saw me walking (yes, I walk 2 miles every day at lunch) or on my stationary bike, it would look like I was talking to myself. 

I repeat two things over and over and over.

“One ninety-nine” and, my mantra, “I can. I will. End of story.”

The weight melted off in the first month and a half.

This gave birth to “Hot Timmy Summer”.

If you saw me this summer, you may have heard me promoting Hot Timmy Summer. 

From the outside, it probably sounded stupid or self-indulgent, but it was about me embracing myself and being confident in myself as a human, not just faking it.

If people asked if they should do something, my answer was, “go for it! It’s Hot Timmy Summer, celebrate your power.”

In the beginning, I held on to anger inside me. I’d hear the people making jokes about my weight over the course of my life. I’d see their faces and hold on to it through a difficult workout or when I really wanted a piece of pizza but didn’t want to mess up my progress.

Hot Timmy Summer changed all that.

It started when I was going to my brother’s house and going swimming in the pool. The pool that was put in when I lived there in 1998. I have had a routine since the first day I swam in it.

I would put a towel close to the stairs. I would pick a time when people weren’t paying close attention to me, quickly take off my shirt, and jump in. Then, when it was time to get out, I’d go straight to the towel and cover up as quickly as possible.

I would do this even if it was just my family around the pool. I just figured they had to be at least as disgusted as I was in how I looked without a shirt on. 

This summer, I realized how ridiculous that is. 

I decided that I was out of fucks to give when it came to what people thought about me. Thus,  Hot Timmy Summer was born.

So, how’d it go?

Well, today is my birthday and the official end of Hot Timmy Summer. 

I stepped on the scale this morning and it showed 198.4 pounds. 

I am down just over 65 pounds in 179 days. 

I am not done yet, I have adjusted the goal and will lose another 14 pounds, just so I can say I am at the normal weight (according to the BMI charts). 

This morning, I took a moment to pat myself on the back and enjoy it.

First and foremost, I did it for my wife and my children. They deserve a husband/dad that loves himself enough to take care of himself. 

I did it for previous versions of myself that would look in the mirror and cry. The guy that would look in the mirror and say terrible things to the reflection. For the teenage Tim who cried in a Hollister dressing room because nothing fit. 

I did it because life is too short not to love yourself. 

It took me 36 years to learn that lesson.

Maybe you’re reading this and have had some of the same thoughts or feelings. 

It’s never too late to work on and improved yourself in whatever way you want. 

Fuck what other people may say or think about you.

You can. You will. End of story. 

Cheers.

The Ice Cream Truck

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Well, at least I’m getting a little run in. 

This is my thought as I run out my door in crocs, sweatpants, and a t-shirt with my 5-year-old racing toward the street. 

Let’s back up. 

I recently saw a Tik-Tok. Yes, I’m thirty-six and on Tik-Tok. 

To be clear, I watch Tik-Toks. I do not create them. I’m not sure that makes it better, but there you go. 

Anyway, this Tik-Tok is from a dad’s perspective. He had just finished putting his child to bed. Relieved and recovering from the frustration of his day, he flops onto his couch where he sees his child’s jacket. You then see the pang on his face. A feeling that I’m sure is familiar to parents with toddlers. 

That instant yearning for your child. The fights, frustrations, and tears melt away leaving nothing but the overpowering and all-consuming love. 

Captions on the screen read “Could I have been more patient?”, “Could I have played with them more?”, etc. 

Once again, these are thoughts that run through all parents’ heads often, if not daily. I am constantly battling thoughts like this. 

This past Sunday, while I was preparing food for my wife for Mothers Day, my wife yelled my name from upstairs. 

My heart sinks because, typically, when she yells my name it means something bad has happened. She comes downstairs quickly asking if I have money. 

“What is going on?” I said. 

She looks out the front door and says “I heard the i-c-e c-r-e…”

It’s amazing when you start having to spell everything out in front of your kids, how fast you can pick up on what is being communicated. It’s also amazing how sometimes you forget how to spell even the most basic words.

During the summer months, the ice cream truck comes through our neighborhood almost every Sunday. The sun was out and the temperature was in the low 60’s which qualifies as summer in Minnesota. 

As my wife spelled out “ice cream truck”, I have a moment to decide what to do. I was busy in the kitchen, my daughter needs a nap, I’m wearing sweatpants, and I haven’t showered. 

Normally, I wouldn’t care about that last one, but I am trying out this long hair thing and I don’t really know how to manage it all. It tends to look like I recently got struck by lightning. Not just moments ago, but maybe a few hours ago. 

Point is, it would have been easy to just let it go by and give my kids ice cream from our freezer. However, the ice cream truck might be my 5-year-old’s favorite thing in the world. So I look out the front door, hear the familiar music, and see the truck slowly driving away from my house and decide…

We are catching that fucking truck.

I yell, “Jude! ICE CREAM TRUCK! I’ll go get money!”

Just the look on his face as he processes this information is enough to let me know that I’ve made the right decision. 

I sprint up the stairs to my bedroom, grab a $20 from my jeans pocket, run back down, slip on my crocs, and follow my barefoot son out the door in a dead sprint.

When I say sprint, think light jog for a normal human that is in decent shape.

As we run across the street and get on the sidewalk making our way toward the truck that is 2 blocks ahead, I notice a couple of neighbor kids in their yard pointing in the direction of the truck and yelling for their parents. Then I see their shoulders slump as they had clearly gotten the “it’s too late” answer from their parents. 

As we were about a block away, I realize that I have a giant smile on my face. I can’t help it.

We continue after the truck, which has stopped for a couple of kids and their mom. 

We are going to catch it.

I see the change passed back to the mom and the truck starts to drive away. 

No.

I make eye contact with the mom as she turns. She sees the desperation in my eyes and she yells for the truck to stop. 

We make it to the window. Out of breath, I ask my son what he wants. 

He points to a Batman ice cream and then, because he is an amazing big brother, asks “can we get some for Clementine?”

“Of course!” I said. And we pick an ice cream we think she’ll like. 

My son asks, “why aren’t you getting anything?”

“I don’t want any, but I wanted you to have a treat.”

“You’re the best daddy,” he said. 

And, there it is. If I make nothing but terrible decisions for the rest of 2021, I could still hang my hat on the decision to chase the ice cream truck and call it a win.

You may be rolling your eyes and thinking, oh, so this was just an attempt to brag about being a good dad?

No. 

I do my best to be a good dad, but there are more times that I feel inadequate than great. What’s more, I don’t judge my neighbors for not chasing the ice cream truck because I have no clue what they were going through that day. They may have just gotten back from Dairy Queen for all I know. 

The point is it was simple. It made me feel like a kid. It made my kids unbelievably happy. 

There are so many frustrations in life (especially over this past year) and in raising kids. It’s easy from moment to moment, to forget that the days are long and the years are short. 

So whether you have young kids, grown kids, or no kids at all…

Get out there and chase that ice cream truck. 

Cheers.

Why I Go(pher) 2.0

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Before the 2012 season, I wrote Why I Go(pher). The Gopher football team would finish that season 6-7. And under that coaching staff and administration, it never felt like they would be more than a middle-of-the-road Big Ten team.

Yesterday, 7 years later, we turned the corner I wrote about. And as I predicted, I was there.

At the time that I wrote those words, I had no clue that I would have a 3-year-old son and a 9-month-old daughter sitting next to me. Long gone are the days of drinking as much as I want because I had nothing to do on Sunday.

Our Gopher gamedays are decidedly different. In this special edition of TimTalks, I am going to hand the mic over to my lovely wife to give you a gameday-in-the-life as the wife of a Gopher fan:

 

It’s 5:30 am on a Saturday. Warm in my bed, I’m awakened by my husband’s alarm. I keep my eyes closed for a few minutes, considering trying to catch a little more sleep. I decide against it. Time to move. My husband looks up, surprised, as I walk into the bathroom. “I understand. I know this is the biggest game in decades. I’m up.”

Two hours later the car is packed, the kids are dressed, the baby’s been fed, and we are ready to go.

For the first time in years, I have convinced my husband we don’t need to make it in time for the open of the tailgate lots. Lots open six hours before game time or 7:00 am for an 11:00 game. On our drive in, at 7:45, we hear from my brother who has beaten us there. I can tell instantly my husband is disappointed at our late arrival. We pull up at 8:07 am. Three hours until game time. Our shortest tailgate of the season.

Growing up with three brothers, I spent my fair share of time at football games. However, I was more interested in talking with my friends than staying up to speed on the play by play. My first Gopher football game, in 2001, my future husband and I sat in the Metrodome as he tried to explain the basics of the game. I listened, not realizing as a 16-year-old girl that this would become a staple of my life.

Gopher football as a college student and twenty-something without children was A LOT of fun. I loved the social aspect. The chants, the traditions, and the beers. I cheered loud for the big plays but didn’t lose sleep over a bad game. But it got a lot tougher with one and now two kids. And I’ll admit, some days I get a bit salty.

Making it to a tailgate lot at 8:30 am with a three-year-old and an infant requires a lot of work. Arriving home a solid twelve hours later makes for some tired kids, and parents too. And some days I just wondered, could we maybe go at 9:30, or 10:00? Is it absolutely pivotal to the success of the team that we arrive for six full hours of tailgating? And the answer is, yes.

Yes, it does matter. Because it matters to my favorite human on this earth. It matters to him to show up for his team, week after week, some years loss after loss. And this moment, this day, was to date, the most important day in his lifelong journey as a Gopher fan. My husband has never missed a game in TCF Bank Stadium. His three-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter haven’t missed a home game in their lives. He’s been there for the electrifying wins and the heartbreaking losses. He always shows up.

So I show up. I nurse a baby in the sleet under a Gopher blanket to watch the team beat Nebraska. I stand in the pouring rain in Evanston to see the team suffer a truly unwatchable defeat by Northwestern. I’ve never been to Hawaii or Palm Springs, but I’ve been to Ohio State and Maryland.

But some days, like this beautiful November morning, I sit in the sunshine holding a sleeping baby, my hooligan three-year-old being a perfect angel, and watch the Gophers lead a top-five ranked Penn State team through not one, two, or three, but four full quarters of play to maintain their perfect season.

We lovingly refer to my husband as “Timmy Baby Pants.” It’s a lot of fun. On cue, Baby Pants shed a tear in the stands as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played and fans rushed the field. Honestly, I shed a tear too. I’m so grateful for the husband and father that he is. And seeing the joy on his face while he hugged our three-year-old in the final minutes of the game, I’ll get up at 5:30 on a Saturday for that. I’ll stand in the snow and the rain to see those smiles on my two favorite boys’ faces.

And I know it’s only going to get easier, and better, as my kids grow up. I can already see the excitement and joy on my son’s face when he talks about “Minnesota.”

We are laying the foundation for a lifetime of tradition.

I’m a big Fleck fan. I love his energy and enthusiasm, and he’s easy on the eyes. Some people roll their eyes at the catch phrases and mantras, but I love them.

FAMILY. Forget About Me, I Love You.

It perfectly encompasses my Gopher experience. I love the energy and the party and the celebrations, sure. But I can’t tell you the score or even who we played in the opening game of the 2018 season. What I can tell you is what the face of a father looks like when his 2-year-old son walks into the stadium for a new season, looks out over the field with eyes full of wonderment, and unprovoked exclaims “row the boat.”

I can tell you about the pride on a first-time father’s face as he walks into the stadium with his son strapped to his chest for his son’s first game.

I can tell you about the sparkle in a father’s eye as he watches his wife unwrap his daughter’s first pink Gopher shirt.

I can tell you what a father and son sing on Fridays before gameday. (Les Mis  – “One Day More”)

I can tell you about the grin on a toddler’s face as he signals for another “Golden Gopher First Down!”

I can tell you how a tailgate lot full of strangers become friends (it takes a village.)

At the end of the game, win or lose, I can tell you about my husband and the amazing bond that he will forever share with our children over this team called the Gophers.

It’s why I Go(pher).

The Mountain

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Two decades. 

Twenty years. 

7,300 days. 175,200 hours. 10,512,000 minutes. 

Time is great at playing this terrible trick on us. When you start counting minutes in the tens of millions, time seems to drag. 

When you count it in decades, saying “time flies” seems like a comical understatement. 

After two children, it feels like time is an icy mountain face that I am sliding down making futile attempts to slow myself. 

Looking back up the mountain, shrinking in the distance is me awkwardly asking my wife to “go out” with me and her saying yes, not knowing that she was grabbing my hand and jumping off the side of the mountain with me. 

We have been through it all. Junior high, high school, college, our 20’s, two kids, and half of our thirties. 

What the hell happened? 

Just yesterday we were sneaking kisses in the hallway and talking on the phone until one of us fell asleep. We woke up married in a house with two kids that we are scrambling to get ready for daycare. 

The most brutal truth that I have come to know in this life is that the days are long and the years are short. 

My birthday has become so important to me over these two decades. Today it reached a pinnacle when I heard my 3-year-old run into the bedroom, climb into bed, and burrow into me as though it was impossible for him to get close enough to me.

“Daddy, I had a bad dream…”

My gorgeous wife got up and made me a cinnamon roll and orange juice that I shared with my son at the counter.

I walked into the nursery to find my 8-month-old girl standing and smiling at me. 

I felt a strong pang in my chest.

Long gone are the days of wondering what I will get for my birthday, today I realized that all I need to do is open my eyes.

I’m going to do my best to keep them open because I know the next time I blink another two decades will have passed me by.  

Happy birthday to me but, more importantly, thank you to my wife for jumping off the mountain with me October 8, 1999 at 8:05 AM. 

Cheers. 

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