You.
You beautiful person that I’ve chosen and am still choosing day after day to live this difficult, beautiful, wild life journey with.
I don’t think I could have predicted 6 years ago that we would be here, in this place.
That I would have someone to wake up next to every single day or someone to brush my teeth with.
Drive in the car and crazy dance and scream to songs with.
It’s crazy to think that so much can change in 6 years. That someone can go from a stranger to a person’s other half. I’m writing this to get some of my thoughts out on the table. To make sure you know that I will always choose you.
You’re the person I want to see get dressed in the morning as you get ready for work. Scrambling around in the dark, trying not to wake me, probably complaining in your mind that I still haven’t put away the laundry.
I want to look at you those mornings when I walk out of our room — a t-shirt lazily hanging from my shoulder, and notice the wrinkles forming beside your eyes. The age marks on your arms. Your hair turning grey and still want all of you. I’ll run my hand over your shirt and you’ll say you have to go to work and you’ll walk out the door with a smirk and an “I’ll see you later”.
I’m writing this because you’re the one I’m going to have kids with and I can’t wait for those days. For the days that are wrapped around going to their school events. When they play an insignificant role in a school play and we still get so excited and want to record the whole thing. When they learn to play an instrument and they play really badly, and we casually make fun of them a little bit, but obviously when they’re not around. When we go to the sporting events and are the loudest and most embarrassing parents there, but we won’t care.
I’m writing this because I want to travel with you. All over the world. I want to explore as many countries as we can. We’ll drag our kids with us because we want them to be cultured and to understand the world outside of the United States consumeristic box. I’ll take a camera and it’ll always be around my neck and you’ll probably make fun of me and say something like “memories are more important than always taking pictures”. And that’s true, but one day we may not remember and we’ll at least have those photographs to remind us of all the years we spent together. Of all of the years that we may not have had all the money we wanted to have, but we saw all of the things worth seeing.
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And we’ll go to all of the theme parks and we’ll probably complain about how hot it is and how expensive it might be, but we’ll go on every single ride our kids want and we’ll let them pull us around from sun up to sun down because we would do anything to see their faces light up with joy. And while I’m worrying about them falling out of a ride or being kidnapped in a huge crowd, you’ll be the fun dad letting them pig out on any sugary treat they want and putting them on your shoulders when they get tired of walking and I may be jealous that you’re the “fun” one but I’ll always know that I picked the very best man to be the father of my children.
I want this kind of life with you and I will choose it every day. I want to visit our families together. Trying to get everyone together every year, but always failing. Laughing at your parents table playing board games and eating candy. You and my dad goofing off. Watching my own siblings grow up every year and eventually adding our own annoying kids to the group running around the living room.
I want to grow old with you, go to doctors appointments and check-ups with you. Make fun of each other because we really can’t see anything anymore, and our bones and joints pop and crack with every move we make. I want to complain about how I hate getting old. How death feels like it’s right around the corner and have you smile and say “get used to. We ARE old.”
I want to fight with you — and I know we will. We’ll fight over everything sometimes. And some years we’ll fight more than others, and we’ll hold each other less but I’ll know and I’ll remember that no matter how mad we might make each other, how much we have an urge to walk, that you’re still worth holding onto, year after year, and that I waited so long to have a life that fit with someone elses.
I want to fight with you over the things that matter, and the things that don’t. Argue with you in a car about which direction to take, about how much money we’re spending, argue over how annoying it is that I don’t do the laundry enough, argue about our jobs, and where we’re going to live. And argue about how to raise a kid in this world.
I want you to be the one that stands at my head when I’m having a child. You be the one that gets more worked up and I have to tell you in between pushing to shut up and hold my hand. Watch your big eyes stare at this thing we’ve created, and be scared to death when it comes time to put him or her in a car seat.
I’ll want to take a break from life with you sometimes — when things feel overwhelming and the kids are throwing toys at each other, and there’s marker on the wall and the fridge smells like something died and there’s a mess in every room.
Get in the car and drive to Mcdonalds or Taco Bell and talk about how we each could’ve ended up somewhere else, but here we are. Talk about all of the dreams that we still have and think about what life could have been and what worked and what didn’t. Leave happy, knowing that we still have this small life with each other.
I want to go through all the good years with you, and the bad ones too. The years we get job promotions, the years family members die, the years we don’t have enough money, and the years our children take over and become the only thing we focus on.
And when it’s over, when this small little life is over, I want it to be you that is there in the end.
I want it to be you that I have to say goodbye to as one of us passes on to meet Jesus.
