Five Years of Us and Seven Months of Mabel

I wrote the letter below in my other blog, littlebabychew. It was written in honor of my five year anniversary that just happened to be a few days after Mabel's 7 month anniversary in our family. I can't tell you how many things I think of throughout the day that I say to myself: Man, I should write a blog about that or that could definitely be a story. I don't write nearly as much as I'd like to, but when I do make or find the time, I'm glad when I get to reflect on my life. I started this blog almost two years ago to mentally prepare myself for turning 30 years old. Since then I have bought a house, been a small part in having a beautiful baby girl, and 30 has come and gone. I should write more. I will, I'm sure. 

I think back before Jenna was in my life. I wrote when I was a teenager to get rid of my angst and because it was cathartic. Most of that stuff is terrible. I wrote in college because I had to, but more often than not I thought it was fun enough. I didn't write for years after that... nothing. 

I write more now than I ever have in my life and for that I'm lucky. I write more now because I have more to write about. I've spent five years with the love of my life and our family is growing and perfect. I'll keep writing, because I'll keep getting better. Life is a luxury and I'm currently living pretty F'n large. So here is a letter to little Mabel Jayne in honor of her Momma and our lives together. 

Cheers to all the years to come and all the unwritten words. There's plenty of time to find them and there is certainly plenty of motivation.

Little Mabel-

Five years ago, on this day August 16th, 2008, your Momma and Daddy stood in a beautiful little backyard grove and said some vows that ended in some "I do's". Leading up to that day, your mom and I felt an inexplicable draw to each other that ended up forming a bond that eventually led to you, our little peanut. I want to tell you a few things I've learned in that four years and five months before you joined the family:

1 - Time matters. How you spend it, where you spend it and who you spend it with are all remarkably important. Being conscious of that time and acknowledging it doesn't come easy or natural to most people, but when you learn to do so, it changes everything. That time we spent over those years taught us how to love each other better than we ever did before we were married. It taught us how to talk to each other, sometimes how to fight each other, and it taught us to appreciate the mere fact that we were together. We have grown as people, we have grown as a couple, and we have grown as friends to each other and to your vast web of grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles.

All that time, I don't think we realized we were just prepping for you. It's easy to love you and your perfect giggle, gorgeous smile, and everlasting loving looks, but the time and love your momma and I have spent cultivating makes it so much easier to see all the joy and beauty through the times that aren't always easy. Your first cold (which you're just getting over) is nothing compared to watching you roll over on all fours and rock back and forth, prepping for that first crawl. The sleepy mornings after long nights are nothing compared to what we're pretty sure is waving when we say hi and barking when you see Daisy.

2 - Talking matters. By the time you read this, I'm sure you'll have a pretty good idea of your old man's propensity for chattiness. It's easy for me to talk and to give fun speeches and to address large groups, but it hasn't always been easy for me to talk about the important stuff. Your mom either. Five years ago, we had remarkably different approaches for dealing with our conflicts or sharing what we really wanted to get out of our relationship. We worked through it through eventually breaking down those barriers and because we never stopped talking to each other and we kept loving each other.

Learning how to speak to one another, which hopefully we will pass on to you, took a lot of time, but after five years, hopefully we have a pretty good grasp of it. Sometimes, especially now, when I'm frustrated or I know your Momma is frustrated I think of you and I think of five years ago and I smile knowing that it's such a minuscule moment in our lives and I get less frustrated. That all came about through time and talking and just pure love for you and your mom. She does the same for me. More than I acknowledge, but I'm so proud of her. I fell in love with a person years and years ago who has grown into one of the best people I know. She just keeps getting better and better and you get to have her as your Momma and we get to share all this love with you.

3 - Love matters. Your Momma and I have been married for five years today because we love each other. We love each other for the people we were, people we are, and the people we're still becoming and will someday become. In these five years, those three words haven't always been easy to say, but they have always been the port we come back to. We say them to you every day and we want you to grow up to know what love is because you saw it every day of your life. We want you to learn how to talk, how to appreciate life, and how to love by giving back to you what you have given us.

We have spent five years become better people with and for each other, little Mabel Jayne, and now, seven months into your already amazing life, it's even more evident than it was on day one: We were learning to love each other better so we could love you and our new family the best. Thank you for giving us all that you have given us and thank you for helping me appreciate who your parents are as people, as individuals and as a couple. I don't thank your Mom enough out loud, but I thank her every day in my heart and in my life by saying those three small words and knowing she is the best part of me and has given me the best part of us, which is you.

I love you little girl. Thanks for making us better and thank you for helping me realize all the amazing things I get to teach you. I'm the luckiest Daddy, the luckiest husband, and the luckiest person I know. That's all because of the last five years with your Momma, and the last seven months with you.

Thank you, both.

What's Next?

Update: I hate everything about this post, but I'm not going to delete it because that feels like lying somehow. For anyone who might be going back to read things, don't read this one. Skip it and read the Marathon Monday post or the one about the Bills or your Late 20's sucking.

Yesterday (Thursday) the FBI released pictures of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.
This morning, at 5:30am Jenna woke me up with news that one of the suspects had been killed along with an M.I.T. campus policeman, a 26 year old named named Sean. Suspect one is dead. Suspect two is on the loose.

Skip ahead a few hours and Boston is on lockdown. Twitter is sharing pictures of police snipers  on roofs, armored trucks rolling through the streets. Most of the city is shut down and people are scared. The only consolation at this point is this part of the debacle will most likely be over soon, the hardest part is who knows if we'll get any answers.

Jump to West Texas where a fertilizer plant exploded killing around 40 just two days ago.

Jump to Washington, D.C. where, despite incredible support from the American public, the Senate bi-partisanly put an end to talks of gun reform and background checks. President Obama called it a "sad day in Washington" and a "failure." 

Let's get something straight:

The last five days have been fucked up.

I apologize for my language, but everything else I typed didn't share the gravity.

I wanted to write thanking everyone who read and shared the last post I wrote regarding the Marathon Bombing. It was viewed over 1500 times in two days and I am still in awe of the response and how much people care.

I wanted to write asking people to help me. I was motivated, I was encouraged, I was excited to be sharing something with so many people! But I need help, too often it takes a disastrous event or a major life change to move me to words, and I do not want that to be the case.
What should I do?
How should I proceed?
Should I proceed?

I wanted to write and share the positivity that swept through the world despite the horrific events. Whether it was the Mr. Rogers quotes, the Patton Oswalt Facebook post I already shared, the Patton Oswalt Star Wars filibuster for that matter, George Carlin quotes, or blogs and retrospectives written by other individuals personally working their way through events (Here are two I've shared on Facebook from my good friends Kris and Justin). People stood up (or maybe sat down) and took the time to think, feel, and share their way through an awful moment in our history.

Hope was sought, some peace was found, love was shared.

Now how do we move on from this? Individually? Nationally? Politically? Peacefully?

In all honesty, most people will do exactly what they did after Newtown, Aurora, Oklahoma City and all the other sites of local terror, atrocity and death; they will use them as references in blogs, but move on with their life saying things like, "we should do something" or "something like that could happen right here" to "is our government going to do anything."

Well, in short, yes we should, yes it could, and no it isn't.

Our government is broken. I won't turn this into a political rant, but it is a fact that our elected officials are often elected because they raised the most money from special interest groups. Thus, they function on behalf of those groups. They are basically paid to be elected and as we saw with the gun control vote, despite 90% of public support, the officials elected to represent the public failed miserably.

It's sad. It's frustrating. It's seemingly and almost comically futile.

Most people will go on with their every day lives a little sadder, maybe a little more cautious. The folks in Boston and the families directly effected by these events in West, Texas, Newtown, Connecticut, etc. don't get off that easily. They will live with it every day, some for the rest of their lives. Most of us still ultimately feel safe when we go to bed. If you don't live in one of those places and you don't feel safe, give it a week or two, if you're honest with yourself you will most likely realize you haven't thought much about the bombings or shootings.

I don't have answers. I don't know what we can actually do. I want to start electing officials who are going to represent the people. I want to stop people from jumping to broad conclusions based on race, religion or even their relation to the Mason Dixon Line.

I want our country and our world to change, but I honestly don't have any idea how that is going to happen. I don't want to go on living my life without change, but what can we do?

Some people say the best way to combat events like this is to go on living your life. I agree, to a point, but living our every day lives typically ignores everything that is wrong with the world.

Man! I'm getting frustrated writing this, so it's time to take a step back ...

I don't believe we have the luxury of simply living our lives anymore. Maybe I should say we don't have the luxury of living our lives blindly or trusting that "they'll" take care of it.

I want to be challenged.
I want to be called out on my words and actions.
I want to be asked to help.
I want to be asked if we can make things better.
I want to make things better.
I want to reiterate some things I said in my last post...
I want to teach our children to think and be better people of the world. I don't want to stop there.
I want to teach myself, my friends, my parents, my world to be better.

I don't know how.

I want you to help me.

Many of us were not directly effected by the tragedies of the last 30 years. Most of us are thoughtful and conscientious enough to offer support and condolences, but that only goes so far. I haven't heard of anyone I know being physically injured by the events in Boston. Yet ...

All morning I have been reading Facebook and Twitter posts from people huddled in their Newton/Brighton/Watertown homes with the doors locked and their children scared. That feeling isn't going to go away anytime soon for those people. I hope beyond hope that their fear, uncertainty, and madness is met with swift resolution and replaced with action, love, support, and eventually peace of mind.

You might not be there.

The explosion at the fertilizer plant might not have been a terrorist event, but make no mistake that the survivors and the victims families are currently living in terror.

It is inevitable that, at some point, we will all be struck with tragedy, horror, or atrocity. That statement isn't meant to be disheartening, it is meant to be true. It is a fact of life that life isn't always good. Bad things happen to great people. That's okay. Without the bad we could never see the good and we could never fight against the darkness. We would never get the motivation of thought and consideration for life.

None of these events have been good.
Please, help me find the good in them. Help me find a path that leads to change.
Help me figure out what to write next.

I hope the next one is funny. Whatever I write, I hope it is funny. Not everyone agrees, but I think I'm pretty funny. Just don't read my post about Parson Brown... stick with the ones about being in your 20's or the Buffalo Bills... pretty much anything about the Bills is hilarious at this point.