It was so nice of you to start a game for me that combines two of my favorite things: Easter egg hunts and Halloween. Unfortunately hunting for itty bitty fake snakes all over my house isn't my idea of the best time. So far, I've found them in these locales:
--outside the front door
--outside the back door
--in my chair
--on the toilet seat
--in my sink
--in my bed
--on my pump bag
--in my daughter's mouth
I'm hiding them where I hope you won't find them. Sorry sweetie :)
I have to admit that my topic tonight is less than lovey dovey. It's football season again which means it's fantasy season again. I could write a whole book about the role that this game has played in our marriage, starting with my realization somewhere in the first six months of our marriage that I would either have to embrace fantasy football or resign myself to a miserable fall and winter every year. So I embraced it. It might have been my first major deliberate act of love for you. But, we are now seven years and three kids later. It's much harder to embrace now. The fun has mostly been replaced with frustration. Luckily I barely care about my games because I could not possibly keep track like I used to Sunday is my hardest work day each week, and now that football has started I'm also responsible for 90% of the childcare all day (except during Sunday School of course), and then in some weeks I'm also preparing for Monday night supper club. Now we are also throwing Sunday night small group into the mix.
I get that you love fantasy and that it's been part of your life for over a decade. I'm trying to allow you to indulge. Honestly. Last Sunday wasn't my best effort as my meltdown right before kickoff revealed. You so clearly had no idea why I was so mad that you quit helping me mop up the exploded yogurt from all surfaces of the kitchen to go sit at your computer for your eighth and last line up check. You seriously had no inkling as to why I was upset. My explanations were of no help. So, it's clear, I just have to try to deliberately embrace it again this year. I promise to try . . . Because I really do love you. But that doesn't mean I love fantasy football. I don't, even when I try to pretend otherwise.
Yours,
Me
I read so much and so often that too little of what I read really sticks with me. But, I remember a passage from The Kite Runner vividly. The narrator's mother had died in childbirth, I believe. Either that, or when he was too little to remember her. As a teen, he meets a man who knew his mother well, and he tells the boy that his mother had a premonition that her life was nearing it's end. She said that she had been gifted with this perfect happiness that could not be maintained in this imperfect and fallen world.
I guess such is my nature that I must have something to worry about. So I worry these days about losing you or the children. Even your recent day trip to a college football game left me awash in pointless worry. I find myself reaching out to touch you more often than normal these days just to assure myself that you are still here and with me. I've always known that the kind of love we share is a rare gift, but I find myself guarding it more and appreciating it more than ever. I feel like a love-struck teen again even as the mirror assures me this is not so.
My gifts to you these days have been nights off, fantasy football, and lots of home-cooked meals. What I want in return is nothing more than your constant love and presence in my life. And, maybe to get to sleep in :)
I love you,
Me.
