Lessons I'm Relearning on the Way to the Love of a Lifetime

You can't walk on eggshells. Your partner doesn't want you to and it doesn't accomplish anything. Be yourself and give the gifts you have to give. Be your own unique self and trust that you are worthy because you are. Don't fear or fret, just live, and appreciate the life you are given, the opportunity to give a tender back rub and soothe your love to sleep. Let yourself love. Let yourself be loved. None of us are perfect, but we're pretty damn good, and that is more than enough. Trust what you have to give and give all of it, and revel, revel in the rewards of loving your wife, touching her, comforting her, celebrating her every curve and sigh. Live to hear that sigh, and know it is the sweetest sound in the world, your deepest reward for being a man. Thank the God who made you that he made you a man and gave you to her and she to you. What a gift, what a moment, like holding your first child on the day she was born and singing her to sleep wrapped in her new blanket from the Dairy Farmers of Oregon. My god, I had the audacity to be embarrassed that day. She was the first baby born in June and her picture was in the Enterprise-Courier. We had to get married, as they used to say. I was immature and stupid and nowhere near ready. I blew the whole thing. I didn't know how to take care of anyone. I was selfish and angry and confused and always ashamed. I wasn't a good father or a good man. I wasn't.

But life keeps trying to teach you and it gives you new opportunities to listen and to love and to serve and to give back. It's the little things. It's always the little things. It's putting away the groceries and wiping up the spilled jar of pickles. It's being silly and making fun of the mannish woman on TV. It's listening to the sweet sound of her snore, safe and warm and at peace in her own bed, the deep sleep of someone who is loved and perfectly at rest.

How can I make amends? How can I be the man I was made to be, and love the incredibly precious souls I've been given to love, without wasting another moment in trivia, selfishness or vanity? Start from this perfect afternoon and thank God for every beat of their hearts.