Preparing for the future: An eye-opening weekend
Allow me to be 100% honest here. There have been times over the past 4 to 6 years when I have seriously doubted that the married life was for me. I don't know exactly why. Perhaps it was because being single is so much easier: you can look out for number one and not feel like you're being selfish, you can schedule your life your way, you can up and leave town at the drop of a hat.
Surprise, surprise. Relationships are work. Marriage is a life-long committment (at least it is meant to be, but that's another story). There is something about marriage that is at once exhilirating and frightening. Marriage requires more than just "committment," it requires a complete opening of oneself to another person, complete honesty, devotion and love. Some people say that men are afraid of committment. I don't agree, at least not for the general population of men. What frightens me is all that other stuff. Committment is easy. We commit ourselves to things all the time: college, jobs, church, sports. Sometimes these things are challenging, but we stick with them. Committment isn't the trouble. What if you were told that you had to be passionate about your job? You had to devote your life to it, and everything you do should be for, about or in consideration of the job? It is a scary thought!! But that is what you commit to when you get married. You are no longer two people leading separate lives - you are one person leading one life, and every action you yake impacts the union, even if you don't realize it.
Now, over the past few months I've been trying to more closely explore my feelings on this subject. Even as recently as two weeks ago, I was still on the fence. But this past weekend opened my eyes to something brand new.
I can't explain it, but there was just something about taking the kids out that was thrilling. Oh, they could be challenging, but overcoming the challenge was done more out of love than responsibility. Now, I've taken Jacob out geocaching before, and we had a great time. In fact, after our first outing, I posted an away message saying that I needed a 10-year-old son. But this weekend was different. With both kids, I had the opportunity to see them interact with each other, to hear them talk about the things that are cool for 10-year-olds these days, to feel an outpouring of emotion for and from them, to excite them with little metal boxes hidden in the woods, send them bravely into waterfalls, laugh with them, protect them, and admire them.
It's settled then - I need to be a dad. I shocked myself when I came to this decision. Children had never honestly been part of my plan. I had nothing against them, but I also never felt the need to have my own. That has changed.
This poses a significant problem, though. Namely, marriage. Why? Because I'm pretty much retarded when it comes to relationships. It is an internal battle just to ask a girl on a date, a battle that is usually won by the retarded side. I have a pretty good idea of why this is: I'm not convinced that I'm interesting to anybody but myself. I'm not trying to be funny here. In all seriousness, for some reason, I can't imagine that any sane woman would have any interest in me at all. Where this idea comes from, I really don't know, but it is present nonetheless, and it is toxic. I think another issue is that the way relationships seem (to me) to work in the modern age is not the way I think they should work. I'm not looking for the random hookup. I'm not looking to date someone for the sake of going on a date. I'm not simply looking for the most attractive person I can find. I'm looking, ultimately, for something much more meaningful than that, and I'm worried that what I'm looking for is too hard to find in the modern world.
Alright, I know I'm sounding off my rocker here. But I started off this post by saying I was going to be 100% honest, and so I wanted to be 100% honest. There you have it.