Thursday, July 13, 2006

in love

Jaime and I have developed a little ritual. Each night before we go to bed, we check in on David. We make sure that he is sleeping ok, has his various sleeping crutches close at hand, that he isn't too cold or too hot. And then we just stand and look at him being the calmest stillest he has been all day. While staring at him a couple of nights ago, I reflected on what I was feeling. It took a moment to search around the attic of my psyche and lay my finger on just what I was experiencing. Then, I hit on it. I was in love. It was the very same giddy, I-want-to-stay-up-all-night-on-the-phone, I-want-to-write-bad-poetry, my-life-is-now-perfect, feeling of being in love right at the beginning of the relationship when you finally realize how you feel about the person. David inspires that almost every day. That inspiration, whether it is in teenage boys, or sentimental fathers, always makes one look at life differently. "My life is wonderful because of this, I never want to let it go." How could this happen every day? Perhaps it is because of the rate at which he is changing. Perhaps it is because I only get about three solid hours with him a day. Perhaps it will kill me, being too taxing on my heart. I don't know. Of course, I will have to let it go someday, which is fine too. There are 1,000 thousand different facets of love, and I have only experienced a few dozen so far. It would be stunting to cling to the most passionate ones forever.

Of course, he sleeps through all of this. The highlight of his day is riding his new tricycle and being able to share with you that he just farted and then giggling hysterically. Until he is a parent, he will not be able to comprehend what I am talking about. I'm sure no child has felt the same love for their parents that parents feel for their children. It is the ultimate unrequited relationship. Fortunately, I can share it with Jaime, whom I am confident feels the same way and we can commiserate that our sleeping little boy will probably spend most of his life unaware of 90% of the feelings that we have for him. If we can even convey to him even 10%, though, he will feel overwhelmed and probably resort to fart jokes to get us to back off. This will work. I have always hated fart jokes.

later, love fans

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