In college, I hung around with a guy named Lars (which he pronounced "Lahhhhhhz"). Technically, Lars was German, but he came from Croatian roots, and was thus prone to a more romanticized existence -- like an artist, and a true Mediterranean man. He fell in love with women he passed on the street, spoke passionately about jazz, and the guerrilla art installations he'd created in European parks, and was seemingly incapable of arriving even remotely on time for anything -- ever.

Lars also had a daughter, Josefina.

I never knew Josefina -- she lived with her mother back in Berlin, and I only met her once -- but I remember Lars talked about her constantly. However, for most of the time he and I knew each other, I was a self-absorbed 18-year-old who thought children were the plague of suburbanites -- a burden far too pedestrian for people, like me, who were making "important art." So, when my friend talked about aching to see his little girl, or tearing up when he heard her voice on the phone, I had no idea what he was talking about -- he might as well of been describing an obsession with stamp collecting, or some other hobby that I found impossible to understand. When Lars told me about his problems with Josefina's mother, I thought he was over-complicating a straightforward issue: either break up, or stay together -- it's simple, right?

And of course, even though I considered Lars to be one of my closest friends, I still assumed that he'd run out on his responsibility -- that he'd bailed on his family. Because that's what everyone who isn't a father assumes when the father goes away.

About four years ago, Lars and I were sitting on the steps of a coffee shop. We were nearing graduation, and the Spring had finally lifted the dark fog that engulfs Liverpool throughout the Fall and Winter. He'd just spoken to his daughter, and was seemingly overwhelmed at how smart she'd become -- while I, on other hand, still couldn't fathom why it was all so important. But by this point my apathy had been replaced with fear. I was scared that I'd never get it -- that I simply was capable of comprehending what Lars had been talking about over the course of our friendship, and his first few years as a father. I was petrified that in two months I'd be a dad, too -- single, detached, and 5,000 miles away from the woman that was pregnant with my child.

It just felt so unreal.

I thought about Lars as I drove from Cleveland to Philadelphia, just a couple days after I got back to the U.S. My daughter was due any day in Texas, and I still couldn't conceive of what it meant to care like he did -- like I knew a father was supposed to. All I could grasp was that babies cost money so fathers got jobs -- and I held onto that meager understanding for the entire 10 hours, heading East into the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. There was no denying it: I was a wreck -- but figured I could fake being normal just long enough to convince a few people I wasn't crazy, and that they should pay me to work for them.

And I thought about Lars, back in Germany, raising his daughter, when I moved into my first studio apartment in Austin -- Edan and her mother set to move back to Liverpool so she could finish her last year of school. Like most parents, nothing in my life looked the same after my daughter was born. I knew a love that ran deeper than anything I'd experienced before -- more important than my career, my family, even myself. That year I spent every night wandering through my neighborhood, imagining what life would be like if I could rock my daughter in my arms, singing her to sleep -- wishing I knew the sound of her laugh.

Lars and I have lost touch over the past couple years, and I've been meaning to write my old friend an email, letting him know how wonderful it all is -- every bedtime story, trip to the park, and day lost making castles around the house. I wanted to apologize for all the times I nodded like I understood but obviously didn't care, or all the times I judged him for being so far away from something that was apparently so important. For oversimplifying fatherhood because I was too immature to comprehend what it really meant.

I'm sorry buddy.

I get it now.