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SOCIAL MEDIA


It’s funny you don’t realize you’re lost until you’ve been found. It’s funny you don’t realize something is missing until the void is filled. It’s funny how you think you know yourself inside out only to discover you don’t at all. It’s funny that the seriousness of it all isn’t really that funny. Parenting. Fatherhood. They warned me having a child would change everything. Had I known they were right, I would have changed everything to have a child.

It’s insane to think how quickly I fell in love with her. I thought I loved her before she was born, when her mother and I discussed furniture arrangement in her nursery, when I watched her move from within my wife’s growing belly, when I heard her heartbeat through a speaker inside a cold doctor’s office, when I saw her face and limbs moving on a screen. I thought I loved her when I found out about her, but that wasn’t love. It wasn’t love until I felt the weight of her in my arms.

It’s unbelievable how much my heart grew that day. There was a hole in my chest, in my life, that I somehow lived my days oblivious to until she filled it. She consumed me. She is apparently what I had been looking for without being aware of the search. She is every reason for every thing and it seems the day she was born was the day I was born again, too. She’s the salt in my tears and the volume in my laugh. She’s the light of my morning and the darkness of my night. She’s everything.

It’s interesting to think of life before her and life after because there’s a hard line in the sand drawn by her with a version of myself standing on either side. Her mother is and has always been the clear love of my life, but my daughter is the love of my existence. I intentionally sought the love of her mother, putting forth effort and tripping over mistakes, wishing and hoping for her love in return. With my daughter, it was immediate and unconditional and ever growing and something I never knew I was capable of giving let alone receiving.

It’s all because of her. Every paragraph of this entry has started with “it’s” because it’s true; it’s all because of her. Every decision, every moment, every time I open my eyes and close them again, every time I apologize for not being everything to her that she is to me, every second guess, every epiphany, every lesson learned and taught, every time I fall short, every time I don’t, every thing everywhere every time is all because of her. It’s true. It is. She’s everything. Every single thing.


MY EVERYTHING

December 9, 2015


December sneaks up on me every year tying a little bow around everything I accomplished (or failed to accomplish) within the last 12 months and I’m left with the scraps of broken promises. I’m left with recurring resolutions and unspoken guarantees. I’m left with all the things I said I would do, but didn’t instead. I’m left with a highway of dreams with goals as mile markers and an ocean of potential drowning in procrastination. December… it always surprises me with the gift of truth.

I’m the type of person who prefers fresh starts and clean breaks, I like the volume of our television to be on an even number, I’m the type of person who can tell if someone has been in the rooms of our home and exactly what they’ve touched while in there because everything has its place. Every single thing has a purpose, including people. I have faith that God put every person where they are for a reason and moves them around according to His plan. He gives us talents and provides us with relationships and experiences to nurture them in hopes we’ll share them.

I’m the type of person that overanalyzes my decisions long after they’ve been made rashly. I tend to prefer silence over noise and find comfort in the voices of those that sing our feelings better than we articulate them. I’m the type of person that mentally rewrites my past a million times instead of focusing on the chapters ahead.  Tomorrow is always the beginning and yesterday the end while I’m stuck in the struggle of today constantly plotting the path instead of trekking it.

This December, I want things to be different. Instead of waiting for the New Year to make a declaration of things I want to improve and do and make and create, why not now? Why not start now? December, Christmas, the season of perpetual hope that wraps us up within our walls to soak in the warmth of our loved ones. December, the month reserved to reminisce the many memories each ornament on our tree recalls. Why not December? Sometimes you need a head start to feel like you’re not that far behind.

THIS DECEMBER

December 2, 2015

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