Theledge.net

You are adored, Angie. Bettie adores you, Alphie adores you, and I adore you.

(Buddy adores you too, but the way he shows it is to come and lie on the floor next to you when he doesn’t feel well. This is why some days you feel like he is chasing you around just to fart next to you.)

There is a saying that tells us you can learn a lot about a person from the enemies they have. When applied to you, I think it shows that you are the kind of person who has never left anyone a reason to hate you. You are fair, and honest, you are kind and compassionate.

You are extremely special to those who know you.

And to me, you are one of the reasons I get up every morning.

I love you.

Angie, I’m sorry I have been kind of absent for the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure I am ready to come back yet, or even why I went, but I wanted to try to explain where my mind has been.

I have complained, in the past, that we sometimes have problems staying on the same page in our relationship. I think that is a common complaint in most relationships, simply because two people trying to live side by side will eventually reach a point where they stop talking to one another and start making assumptions. And you know what happens when people make assumptions? They make and ass out of u and ’mption. (Sorry, but that movie was on last night this morning when I came to bed... so, of course, I had to stay up and watch it...)

I know you don’t always know what I am thinking, or feeling, or where I am coming from. I can’t (and don’t) ever expect you to, because there are times where I am not even sure of those things. But I wanted to thank you for not making too many assumptions about what goes on in my head.

You once said to me something to the effect of “It must be very hard living your life. You are always thinking, and are never able to turn your brain off. It must take a lot of energy.” And you are right, of course, because you are my wife, and my friend, and you know me better than anyone else in this world. But in the last couple of weeks I have had an even harder time keeping track of what is going on in my head.

I have always been, in the words of Robert Service, “a man who won't fit in” with all of the implications which that contains. Unfortunately in the last few weeks I have typified the “So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will...” part of it.

I haven’t been talking much, or writing anything, because I don’t know how to frame it into anything that would be coherent. I cannot focus on one question or topic for any length of time without it fracturing and skittering off into a hundred different related subjects. I cannot think about an idea without it leading back through a mental loop, insinuating itself in dozens of other topics that are floating around in my mind. I have always thought in leaps, jumping from thought to thought rather than smoothly progressing. But usually my thoughts are relatively organized and you have been able to see the portions of the conversation I forgot to include (which is one of the reasons I love you).

But for the last couple of weeks my thoughts have been a bit jumbled, to the point where I am not even necessarily sure of which bits of the conversation I have forgotten. Family, Alphie, you, my childhood, relationships, friendships, accomplishments and legacy, mortality, history, living, god, belief, religion, war all get intermixed with thoughts about daily activities, while insights crop up and slide away as connection after connection occurs. All I can do is try to grab hold of single threads and tease them out so that I can commit them to memory before they disappear. I haven’t even had much luck doing that.

It is one hundred times worse than trying to focus with my attention deficit. It is not, as my problems with ADD have been, about the frustration of trying to focus on a simple task and being distracted by your environment, but instead it is the frustration of trying to focus on yourself, your identity, that single thread of thought that tells you what you think and instead becoming distracted by the little niggling ideas that float around in your mind. It is like seeing the world through the ghosts of thoughts, memories, and ideas, with some unwanted context attached to everything that goes in or out of my mind.

So, rather than try to sort out my mind, or to talk to you about what I am thinking, I have instead chosen to escape to task based activities with a limited scope, and no emotional involvement. I played games online with Max and Brad for what seemed like all of last week, I revised a plugin for Serendipity and reworked the website over the weekend, and this week I have dived into building a new server, spending most of the evenings and a lot of the night poking at software configurations. And I come to bed exhausted, at two and three in the morning, and I still have to watch T.V. for a little while to try to blank my mind out.

All that having been said, I hope I have been of more help these last couple of weeks. I have enjoyed the time we have spent together, either doing Alphie’s four B’s (bath, books, boob, bed), or making dinner together. I have enjoyed the last few weeks with you, even though I haven’t been talking as much as I sometimes do (and man, can I talk sometimes).

You make me happy, no matter what is going on in our lives, and no matter how much we are talking. We could talk, or not talk, for hours. I enjoy just being around you, just doing what we need to do, what we have to do, and what we like to do. I enjoy just living this life with you. And I love you.

Twelve years ago today, under the harsh lights of a Dairy Queen which doesn’t exist anymore, with a Blizzard in front of each of us, I asked you if you would go out with me.

And you said yes.

And then two years ago we threw a big shindig and invited everyone we knew. While we had a bunch of people held captive on top of a big mountain in a blizzard, with gorgeous lighting, we said some things and then we partied down.

So, generally speaking, the lighting has gotten better, and we tend to express our love when there are blizzards in the picture.

Our daughter has changed our relationship. Obviously, we cannot always put one another first, since sometimes she will scream at us and thus far she does not understand the words “One second, dear, your mother and I are having a moment.”

So our relationship has changed ever so slightly. Now we pass the baby as often as we seek a kiss from each other, and often times when you look at me imploringly, it is because you need a burp cloth.

I love it. I love it, and I love you.

I’m sorry the last few years have been tough. I’m sorry that we fight as often as we do, and I am sorry that we don’t always communicate as well as we should. I’m sorry there have been so many times when I seem distant or depressed, and so many times when I haven’t fully recognized what you were saying.

I still love that one of the biggest fights we have ever had was whether "Under Pressure" was sung by David Bowie or Queen. I think that shows that our troubles, as hard as they can seem, are relatively insignificant compared to the joys and the fun that we can have.

I know you struggle to define yourself everyday. It is something I do not understand, since I see you everyday, being an incredible woman, an incredible mother, an incredible wife, an incredible sister, incredible daughter, an incredible employee and an incredible boss. But I know that you struggle with who you are, and that all those roles are only a part of it. I wish I could help more.

I know I don’t help enough.

I am sorry that I seem so stringently defined. I am sorry that my character seems to remain essentially the same, regardless of what I am doing, and who I am talking to, and who is around. I am not a flexible person, and I know that hurts you sometimes. I am sorry I place so much value on “right”, and not so much on “right now”. I’m sorry that there is nothing in our relationship I don’t seem to give to other people, and I want you to know that this isn’t the case. You have everything of mine. You have my heart, my soul, my love, and my life. You have my worst days, and you have my best days. You have everything I can give you. And their is no one else in this world that I will offer all of that too.

I truly do love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you, when I was a total idiot who just wanted to impress you. I loved you even more when you came to see me in college. I loved you more still when I drove up to see you in college (even when I wasn’t supposed to). I loved you yet more when we moved in together. And, if it was possible, I loved you even more when we stood on our porch feeling like we were again teenagers, and that we were too young to own this house. And then I loved you more again as we planned the wedding, and then still more when you walked down the aisle to come to me.

I loved you still more again when you told me you were pregnant, and then more still everyday as you grew our child. I loved you so much more when you birthed our baby as if it was the most common thing in the world, even though we were both so scared.

I love you so much more today than I did when I first said I loved you. And I love you more everyday.

And that is because of everything you have done, and everything you do, for me and for the rest of the world.

I am so sorry for taking the Benadryl® last night. I really didn’t know that two Benadryl tablets would knock me so loopy. Or put me out for so long.

I am so sorry that last night was the night Alphie decided to scream like a banshee for most of the night, and that all I could do was rouse myself for a quick check that you both were still alive before being overcome by the need to sleep.

I am so sorry that Alphie continued this pattern until well past eleven this morning.

I am so sorry that I did the same.

I am so sorry that when the doctor called, as the baby screamed and I slept, Buddy decided to howl as if his pack had abandoned him years ago in this terrible family and that they were calling for directions to come get him.

I have no way in which to repay you. I have nothing to offer you that would even begin to cover the pain and frustration caused by a screaming child, an unconscious husband, and a howling dog.

Just please know that I love you. And enjoy your nap.