Your Daddy loves you. This is unquestionable fact. He has loved you since the moment that I called him home from work and surprised him with two positive pregnancy tests. He wakes up thinking about you and falls asleep dreaming of your future. This has never been a question. You should also know that your father and I love each other. You were brought into a healthy, happy family that wanted you for 2 1/2 years before you even thought of arriving. You should also understand that our marriage has been work. Your growth, birth, and life have been such a joy for us, but they have been things that your father and I have had to learn about as we go. Sometimes your father and I may argue (sometimes it may get loud, as we are both passionate people) but always know that we love each other and we love you more than you could ever dream. We hope for nothing less in your life.
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| My favorite picture of you and your Dad <3 |
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Hello readers! Sorry I'm posting a little late this evening but I had to wait for my dear husband to write his Co-Blog. I will preface his blog by saying that every bit of it is true, even the rough bits. Sean and I have not always been a happily married couple and it took us a while to realize that the "Happily Ever After" that Disney wants to you to believe in is just a hopeful overview of marriage, not an outline or even a walk through. You may love your spouse but there is always something that can be bettered or discovered. That is the reason we accept people into our lives right? We accept that our relationships with our family, friends, and co-workers will require work and constant care and that they may someday change us in someway. So why do we not expect this from our marriages as well? I will be posting about the many things that my husband has helped me learn and vise versa, but not tonight. Tonight is all about my wonderful husband. So, without further ado, my husband, Sean, from over at The Mind of Sean C.H. F.:
Good evening to you all. My name is Sean. I am Courtney’s nerdtastic husband of over six years and father to the Incredible Monster.
My wife has asked me to throw some words together in an orderly fashion on a topic that can easily hit home with everyone at some point in their life. That point is being a grown up. An adult. The responsible one at the party, as they say. Specifically, I’m going to talk about the point that I realized that I was a grown up. The problem is that I don’t have just one. There are so many points in life that come about and you’re slapped with something else to worry about. Buying your first car, your first house, having a baby, your first pet dying, graduating from high school. . . The list goes on, but here, I’ve got to narrow it down, and the narrowest point still leaves two. So, let’s go for it.
My first big grown up moment is almost a mixed bag of getting older but acting younger, and I know that many out there will know exactly what I’m talking about. Admittedly, I lived with my parents quite a while, but I had the sweet room in their basement and paid for almost all of my own stuff, so I was close to out for quite some time. Plus, you can’t beat zero rent. If I could still have zero rent but not live with my parents, I would. Anyway, at the ripe age of twenty-two, I moved out on my own, in with a roommate. Gabe and I worked at Sam’s Club together and figured we were close enough for it to work but not best friends enough to want to kill each other two months in. The first few weeks, of course, were the learning bumps. Dishes, vacuuming, who get’s what room. . . I am the technology guy, so I took over living room duties. Nice big TV, loud surround sound, and video games of every flavor. DVD shelves stacked to the edges, and a beer fridge in the corner. We were ready for business in the physical world, but still learning the ins and outs of dual occupancy in the friend world.
Lessons were learned quickly, though, and quirks were found easily overlooked. After all, who could pay attention to dishes needing to be done when the beer fridge was always full, the cigar humidor always classy, and the TV always displaying something epically geek and awesome? For all our adult responsibilities, we were like a couple of kids, as was everyone that walked into our apartment to accompany us on our adventures. Sure, there were bills. Insurance, rent, utilities, car, but living together in a so-so neighborhood equaled cheap rent, and two guys making good money and dividing said cheap rent in half? Lots of extra green. Beer, hard liquor, smokables, video games, and movies were always in plentiful supply, and friends were always there to help partake.
It’s a strange juxtaposition to look back on things several years later. It was indeed some of the best times of my young life, but it was still my young life. At the exact same time, it was my adult life. I started, in that apartment, to pay my own way on everything. Bounced checks and massive bills were my mistakes and I had to make up for them. But, and this is a big but, I was also less responsible than when I lived with my parents. At twenty-two, I definitely had some drunk nights even when living with my parents, but not like living on my own. We’re talking me passed out ON the kitchen counter. Going through a Family Size Box of Froot Loops with a friend while playing video games just to fight the munchies. Everyone in the house wearing stupid hats while drunkenly shooting each other’s digital likenesses in the face with rockets. Later in life, you can’t really call these “adult” activities, but yet you can. Very, very strange. If I tried to live a week now like I lived a week then, bad things would happen. Bad, law-enforcement-involving things would happen, but it was still adulthood. It was still me being the big boy all on his own, responsible adult or no.
My second adult moment that makes the top of my list is Courtney’s and my marriage problems when we first moved to Denver. We were married two years, together for three, when we moved from one side of the Rocky Mountains to the other. Both still young, both stuck in that young newlywed rut of “if you love each other, that’s all you need.” Marriage felt easy, but, if we had been honest, not great. Something had been missing even before the move but no one could say anything because we were happy to be together and loved each other more than anything. Then we moved.
We found out that the problem with marriage is that no one really tells you about marriage. It is romanticized and built up so much that people never really learn how to be married. When asked, “what is marriage?,” answers will range from, “a gift from God,” to, “a joke women play on men.” The truth? Neither of these or any of the cliches in between are correct. The truth is that marriage is a job. Once you think about it that way, everything will come together and fall into place. Think about the people around you. Some have jobs that they despise. Waking up to go to work every day is a chore, and being at that job is torture handed down from Zeus himself. Roll the ball up hill just to have it roll back down behind you. Others are okay with their jobs. They pay the bills, they don’t get headaches too often, they begin and end at decent hours, and maybe the benefits keep their kids’ teeth in their mouths and offer enough vacation days to take the fam to see relatives every other summer. Then there are those chosen few that don’t think of their jobs as jobs. They go to work to do what they love. Every minute at work is living a dream. They are happy both at home and away from home, and everyone else wishes they were them. Now, do a quick Search and Replace for “job” with “marriage,” and you have the way it is. The way we were never told it is, but it is.
Courtney and I learned the hard way. Things didn’t end completely forever. We didn’t hate each other. Marriage just wasn’t working for us because we didn’t know what to do with it. So, we basically started from scratch and built what should have been there before. It wasn’t easy. It was hard, constant work. In reality, it still is, but this is where the job thing comes into play. In our marriage, Courtney and I have the best job in the world: to make the other happy. It’s that simple. At a friend’s wedding, it was said that a good marriage is not about finding the perfect partner, but about being the perfect partner. That is my job. That is her job. We work at it every day. At first, it was very difficult because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Now, we still work at it every day, but it is a labor of joy. I love my job. It’s the best thing in the world to be married to my wife, and now to have our son. I would never trade any of it, but boy was it work to get here.
Those are my two points in life that grew me up real good. Now, I have been asked to close with my ten “if I knew then what I know now,” or, “young self, do this and don’t be stupid,” things. I will post them, but I’m not giving explanations. They are what they are. As I told Courtney, if I start to break them down, I’ll end up going into divergent timelines, and that is WAY to complicated for this, although it factors into something else I’m working on. Anyway, here we go with the countdown:
10) be nicer and more open to things outside of your normal tastes.
9) attach less to those who haven’t earned it.
8) be less creepy (still haven’t learned this one, actually).
7) don’t try to e-brake turn on pavement.
6) a “shot” is not a scotch glass full, especially when it comes to vanilla vodka.
5) don’t make out with the girl that your best friend wants.
4) when someone tells you you’re good at something and you should go to college for it, listen the first time.
3) grow cold slower, warm quicker.
2) make friends a focal point and trust that they want you to want to do things with them.
1) to hell with ancient bullshit. just be a good person and try to make a positive impact on those you love.
That’s it from me, folks. Again, I’m the husband. Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and may the Force be with you. Always.
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