... and on a lighter note:
When did I turn into such a goober?
One of the things Joy and I like to do is dance while I "sing" to her. Sometimes everyone needs a little cuddle time, and I am no exception. We were having a tender moment when a song by Collin Raye came on called "I Think About You". It's a song about a guy seeing a provocative billboard and sees his own daughter or hears about someone being beaten and abused, or objectified, or generally mistreated and can't help but put her face in the story. It's a sad song to be sure. Of course, I do the same thing, and there we were dancing and me providing additional vocals to the song and hell if I didn't tear up. I must be honest, I have a little lump in my throat right now. I could not finish the song! I just had to keep dancing with my daughter while the urge to take her away from anything that might hurt her waned a bit, or at least to a sane level. I can't help but be a little overprotective of her, but this is taking things a little too far, isn't it? Maybe, maybe not. I don't apologize for it, I just never thought I would care that much. That sounds a bit odd to say about one's own progeny but I have been... umm... kind of a cold person in the past. I have kept the world at arm's length. My wife is about the only exception to the rule. Family too. This is where I write about my life a few years ago, going through a divorce and all the pain that generated for me, and all the associated crap that goes along with it. This is where I say stuff like I built walls around myself because of past experiences to assure I would never feel again. The point of said walls is ostensibly to prevent pain, but what they actually do is prevent any sort of feelings. I have said in the past, and I say it now, if not for all that "crap" I would never had moved to Colorado, met my wife and have been blessed by this wonderful squirming thing in my arms. All the good things in my life, all the things that really matter would not have happened if not for the ugliness of my past. If that is true, how can I possibly call it ugliness? Afterall, it led to such beauty. If beauty begets itself, everything that has happened in my life is perfect. It all happened for a whole bunch of really really good reasons, so it's all good :)
I am by far not a perfect person, but I don't consider myself damaged goods either. Well, not too damaged. Maybe the damage is repairing itself, I don't know, I'm a guy. I have no idea what I'm feeling from one moment to the next, with the possible exception of that one moment. I know what I was feeling then, I'm 100% sure I am completely in touch with what my heart was telling me. It was telling me I love her with everything I've got, and it's my job to protect her. I have to admit, that's sadly a foreign concept. That's pretty unfair to say considering I've devoted myself to my wife previously. Maybe I always left a little place inside me that was ready for rejection. Maybe my wall was still there. Smaller, but there. Maybe there will always be a vault somewhere in there that is ready for the kind of emotional crap I've experienced before. Maybe that thing is getting smaller all the time. I don't know, I'm a guy!
It's one thing to look into the eyes of someone who loves you and seeing that love look right into your soul. It's something else completely to see eyes that are part yours looking at you and a smile that is part yours smiling at you. To see such need, and know you're the one who must respond makes you feel bigger than you ever were. When you used to live in a small little world, and now your world is tenfold bigger than it was, it is like a tree that grows too close to the street and eventually heaves up, seemingly effortlessly, large chunks of asphalt. It's nothing that can be helped, it can't be stopped, and hell it shouldn't be. I'm that tree slowly pushing away things that hinder my reach for the sun. I have no idea where this is going to lead, but it suffices to say I'm along for the ride!
There is so much about this experience that is foreign to me. The whole point, or at least a piece of the point of this exercise is to help me figure it all out. There is almost too much going on to filter it, but I'm making a go of it. A year ago, I would have said "pfft... I don't think so" but now, I'd have to say "they apparently do."
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