marriage

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Before I Met Your Mother: Flashback To 2005

April 3, 2014 at 9:10 pm , by 

3 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

Until last night, I had never seen a full episode of the popular TV show, How I Met Your Mother.

But after hearing all the hype about the final episode that aired this week, I decided to check out the first couple of episodes on Netflix.

It’s interesting because the first episode flashes back to the year 2005, when the protagonist and narrator was 27 years old and meets the woman he wants to marry… and sort of ultimately begins to chase for 9 seasons.

Seeing the show took me back to a place in my life when I was that single 20something year-old guy without a wife and child.

It’s such a different state of mind.

Yes, there was so much “freedom” back then, yet I clearly remember that deep yearning to meet the love of my life, who would in essence connect me to a universe in which the world made better sense to me.

For me, the year 2005 was when I moved to Nashville to truly “start my adult life” as a 24 year-old single guy.

A year later, I met Mommy. Less than two years later, she and I got married. About two and a half years after that, you were born.

To me, this current version of my life is the one I would pick every time.

I know it could be said that raising a 3 year-old boy is at times, chaotic.

But one of my roles in our small family (and in this world as a whole) is to help organize chaos.

It’s as if I find safety and security in the structure of chaos, because it brings meaning to my life.

There are so many things I can’t do well. And there are many obvious roles in our family that Mommy handles.

As for me, I’m here for “everything else.” That’s what I’m good at. I’m starting to fathom that now.

That includes getting rid of spiders for Mommy. That includes being the official disciplinarian for you. That includes me being consistently positive for the two of you even when I don’t feel like it.

I bet it’s hard to imagine me any other way though, right? Before I met your mother, I was a lost boy.

You and her changed that for me. I like 2014 a lot better than 2005.

 

 

Love,

Daddy

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There Is No Law That Can Force People To Love Each Other

February 22, 2014 at 10:27 pm , by 

3 months, 3 years.

Dear Jack,

My love for you is not based on a law; nor could it even be. After all, there is no law that can force people to love each other.

Same thing goes for my love for Mommy. Sure, we have a marriage license (as recognized by the state of Tennessee) and were were married in a church (in front of God and other believers)… but I can’t be forced to love Mommy, or you.

Yet I do anyway. I choose to. I want to.

On a global scale, I believe that if everyone truly loved each other as much as they did themselves, the world wouldn’t need laws; nor would there be wars… nor would there be rich people or poor people, escpecially to the degree that people are starving.

Despite a person’s acceptance level in regards to Jesus and what He taught and claimed, I think there’s no denying He spoke some truth when He summarized it this way:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ -Matthew 22:37-39

But since not everyone does love their neighbors as much as they do themselves, the pattern of brokenness repeats itself.

I used to be a much more openly political person; thinking that my public beliefs as a [Republican or Democrat] would help convince the [opposing political party] to join “the side that truly cares more about helping people.”

But I was wrong to think that way. I was too focused on thinking that if our government would change laws to suit [my political affiliation] at the time, it would force people to stop doing the things that my religion teaches against.

I realize now, the law doesn’t prevent people from hurting each other. Nor does it change a person’s heart.

At best, when a person breaks the law and is incarcerated, it just puts them in a temporary time-out (jail or prison), yet that person (in most cases) doesn’t actually become reformed and redeemed.

Without a true change of heart… without a person truly having the mindset to love other people as much of they do themselves, how can they break that pattern and lifestyle?

And on the flip side, while it’s always the individual’s choice to commit a crime or hurt another person in some way, I do consider how that person’s home life and environment could have led them to make that destructive decision.

Had that person been more loved by those around him, maybe (not definitely) there’s a good chance he would have never headed down the path he did.

Meanwhile, my version of reality has been much different…

I realize that being a middle class American as long as I’ve been alive has given me major advantages and privileges in life; ones that you will have as well. However, I understand those advantages and privileges come with great responsibility. I try to consider this concept:

If I become richer, other people in the world are probably becoming poorer. If I become better well-known, other people in the world are probably becoming more forgotten. If I have too much, it means other people in the world probably don’t have enough.

In America, we are able to play at water parks while so much of the world is desperate for clean drinking water.

I am light years away from perfecting this “love your neighbor as yourself” concept in my life, but I have a feeling that if I’m mindfully teaching it to you, I can take a few steps in the right direction.

 

Love,

Daddy

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That Annoying Learning Curve Of Love

February 5, 2014 at 11:10 pm , by 

2 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

It was seven years ago today that Mommy and I stopped simply being friends, when I basically tricked her into going on a date with me to that fateful John Mayer concert.

Since February 5, 2007, we have been together; that day was such a defining moment in my life.

That was seven years ago! We have been married five and a half years; and you’ve been around for the past 3 years and 2 months.

In this moment, as I step back and think about it, I am so not the same person I was seven years ago when Mommy and I went on our first date.

I may have been more optimistic back then, but I definitely was much less experienced in life- therefore, I was much more naïve, by default.

Not only have I changed, but so has Mommy. The two of us have become improved versions of ourselves throughout the character-building exercises of marriage and parenthood.

We are different people than we were on February 5, 2007. The challenging part is always making sure we continue to grow up together, not apart. That’s what real love is about; it doesn’t always come easy or automatic.

Real love has required me to be more sensitive to her needs and less sensitive to mine.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how I took that Ninja Turtle quiz on Spike.com which proved to me what I had already predicted about my personality: I am Leonardo, the aggressive, yet reluctant leader.

But I am confident that, had I taken that quiz seven, or even 5, or 3 years ago, I would have been a Raphael:

“Charming, charismatic, and very good with people… Unfortunately, you’re driven almost primarily by emotion, often to your detriment… It puts you on the defensive a lot.”

My goal these days is to be the calm-assertive leader; to not react so emotionally to emotional situations and to not take things personally… even if that’s how they were meant.

I am learning to be a stronger man. I am learning what empathy means.

If only I knew all this stuff back when I was only 26… man, I could have been so much better of a husband and dad from the beginning, had I only had this mindset since 2007.

But that’s not how it works. Instead, it’s that annoying learning curve of love.

What I am learning is that family is about growing together, which means learning the hard way together about how to become wiser, more improved, and more humbled versions of ourselves; and to earn a better understanding of what love really is:

Being more giving and sharing of myself and being less expecting of those things from others.

 

Love,

Daddy

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Seth Adam Smith Says Marriage Isn’t For You

November 3, 2013 at 11:34 pm , by 

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The 1st and 2nd Half Of My Marriage, So Far

I have now been married 6 years. That time frame can be easily and interestingly divided in half.

6 Year Wedding Anniversary Lake Tahoe

The first half of that dichotomy was where as a married couple, my wife and I had not yet learned the hard way regarding finances.

We kept digging ourselves deeper in debt, on top of school loans, cars, and our nice wedding. Those were also the days we still ate at restaurants, too; which sucked up around $80 each week.

Also during that 1st half of our marriage, our son was born, and we moved away from our big city full of good jobs (Nashville) to my small hometown, where it was difficult to find a job at all.

And now for the 2nd half:

Three years through our now 6 year marriage, we moved back to Nashville, got good jobs again, and a year later, were finally out of debt. We’ve been saving our money ever since.

And let me tell you, we are not the same people we were before. We were forced to learn to become tightwads.

So now here we are, married 6 years, and the 2nd half of our marriage, in hindsight, has by default, been better.

These past 3 years have gotten us to so much better of a place in life. Granted, it’s contrasted to the first 3 years in which we lived in ignorant bliss.

In theory, life is more fun when you’re unaware of your responsibilities and the consequences of poor decisions which you didn’t realize were poor decisions at the time.

It’s sobering to realize that life has to be so much more serious than I had planned for it to be. I used to be so carefree.

The important thing is, my wife and I had each other to depend on through all we’ve learned together so far.

When I think of the “for better or worse” part of the marriage vows, this is the kind of stuff I think about.

The challenges we’ve conquered together (like learning how to strictly manage our money) weren’t fun to live through, but they made us better people.

So really, it’s not “for better or worse.” It’s for better and worse.

And in the strangest way, I actually see the romance in that.