For my Wife
I sit here in my office tonight knowing you are my entire future. I sit here knowing that no matter where this life takes us… No matter what the next chapter brings, even when it appears for everyone in Valkyrie and all of our wives or husbands or partners, that it will “bring our dreams to life” in every sense of the words… I still sit here knowing that life will always be about us for me. This love is why I am still here on this earth. You saved me. You brought me back to life at a moment when I believed I was destroyed. You held me up through the worst moments I have ever imagined possible, through losing my children, my home and all my worldly possessions and somehow seemingly my job (for pitching what is now Valkyrie) all in the same month… You stuck, by my side through crippling anxiety and depression as I believed everything I had worked towards for my entire life was lost. Like “Saved” you held on to every piece of me that broke off and you held them close and gave them back to me one by one the moment I was ready to have them.
You made this happen. I opened the door to this life for you, and you have carried me through it. We, together have created this thing we now hold in the palm of our hands that feels like an entire new world we are about to create. This child of all of ours, birthed through the pain caused by everyone “above us” who never believed that dreams come true. That new gift to the youth of this world (and young at heart) will be bulletproof and bully-proof, a gift we can hand to the world so that every child in it has the freedom to create their own dreams. I do this for all our children… I am giving them whatever future they choose to believe in.
I question how I know this, and I realize it’s not entirely about faith in this love (while I certainly have absolute faith in it) … It’s not entirely about how perfect we seem, because I know just like you need an irrational number like Pi to make a perfect geometric shape… that in this universe we find ourselves in perfection is something we can strive for, a goal, that cannot be achieved. We, and this love we share, are as close to perfect as anything I can possibly imagine (and closer to perfect than I could even hope to imagine before meeting you). That’s still not how I know it is about us.
The reason I’m so sure this time that life has turned onto a path that we will move forward from here never needing to repair or pick up the pieces of again… like most people in this with us, it is really about pain… It’s about knowledge of my past. I know myself very well (especially now that I have decided to be completely honest with myself, and be exactly true to who I am, quirks and all). I know me well enough to know what I will fight for, what I will live for, and what I will die for (“only love” as Don Juan once said). I have experienced other people’s breaking point with family, with friends, with loved ones, co-workers, with a wife, with girlfriends… I have even lost a job that I have done better than anyone in the world could have hoped to do it, because my vision is one they cannot see.
I know my breaking point has never been reached with anything I have committed to completely… Not once in my life have failed in something that I wanted to accomplish with all of my soul. Thomas Edison said “I never failed to make a light bulb, I just found 1000 things that didn’t work yet”. I approach all of my true commitments that way… I have never been a quitter. Usually as I am sure you will agree, to a fault. Especially when I find myself in abusive relationships, or somehow involved with someone that expects me to catch them if they fall, even when they are eternally running around like a lemming jumping off of the same cliffs over and over again.
I was that boy that stood in front of a drug dealer who was holding a gun and said “someday, I’ll be happy and you will be dead” (he died at 18). That passion, that drive, that light within me has made me successful at just about everything I have committed to, long after everyone who started on the path with me tapped out and gave up… It’s honestly, probably my biggest flaw, and my most amazing strength… It’s why I’ve been called arrogant my entire life when I am anything but. I have been called stubborn when I am always willing to adapt and adjust in real-time. I have been called cruel when I have never deliberately hurt someone. This is also why I have never missed a deadline. That inability to quit, that faith that somehow burns as the dragon within me. When I am at what seems to be a dead end and I find calm, there is a saying that never leaves my mind… “what one man can do, another can do”… that voice inside that says “I can solve this problem”. When I look at you, I see someone who is virtually flawless. I have seen your angry bull demon… But so far at your “worst” you have still been the most amazing woman I have ever known, and I know without a doubt you will always be the right woman, not perfect for this world, but perfect for me… perfect for the “us” we both want us to be.
I had a realization this past week, and it’s another reason I love you. You very rarely say you are sorry… this is not a bad thing for a few reasons. First, when you apologize to me as you did this morning, I know without a doubt in my mind, that you mean it. The other reason is more important, it is about your pain, your past, and the people who told you they were sorry and then failed you again and again and again. I know why you trust so few people in your life, and it is because there have been so few who did not abuse you… Your kindness is very easy to mistake for weakness, and I pity every single person who has ever pushed you to your impossible to find breaking point. You stay, you stick, you never quit. This is your most amazing trait and it’s why we work so well together (and why when we used to fight we would lay waste to the world… neither of us quit). When an abusive person beats their spouse, they are always quick to say they are sorry… always quick to apologize and promise to never do it again… until the next time. Apologies are useless when those who have apologized to you have done so to appease you, calm you, “take care of the issue of you”. This has made those words “I’m sorry” meaningless to you. Actions are all that matters and anything that reminds you of those who broke promises, has you believe that you need to be on guard and protect yourself. This is where we splinter and where we balance each-other like yin and yang… I forgive and rely on my strength to save me when it happens again, you sever because those people no longer deserve you in their lives. With that though, you never ask anyone in this universe to change who they are… You may leave their world, but you do not expect them to change and come crawling back to you. Your breaking point is the near impossible infinity and the only time you will ever break is when you feel your children, or those you truly will love until the end of time need protecting. I have recognized that you don’t even protect yourself. You hold, fast, like the unwavering mother tree of life itself… nothing will make you move again. I understand this is your biggest strength, just as mine is that race car that never takes a foot off the gas and somehow never hits anything. This is our balance, our yin and yang, our perfection that puts us in the center of “the pivot” of the universe as Chiang Tsu called it… That point where all the chaos of the world swirls into the eye of a storm and at the center there is peace. That is where we fall whenever we are together, the waveform cancels and the lake turns to glass and we can see the depth of it clearly… our future, together, the merger of twin souls who have found each other in every life we have ever lived and will find each other again until the end of time.
There is just no breaking point for us. We can get through anything. I know I just won’t ever give up on you, no matter how hard it gets, we will stick. Our hearts may break as life twists us and breaks us into shards with loss and sadness… but the other will be there, to hold those pieces and keep them shining and alive until we are ready to take them back.
That’s what vows are for, that’s what marriage is for… That’s why I can’t wait to say those vows again to you this October in St. Augustine under a perfect sky… Because I want to stand there in front of the world, and in front of my friends, my family, and watch them all vanish because I am in front of you… And say directly to and only for you, that no matter what storms this life brings us, no matter how many imperfections we find in each other… That I will never quit on you. I will never stop trying to make you smile, and hear your laugh that changed my life the moment I first heard it. That’s why I want to marry you again. I just want to make promises to you once again… as we do every day of this life with our little words of knowing we always have a choice and will forever choose each other
“will you marry me?” one of us asks
“Every day” the other answers
“Can I keep you?” the other asks
“Only if you keep me forever” one answers…
This evening I sit calmly and at peace… the race car engine off. Knowing there is no rush… Because in my heart I already made those promises and the one person I can’t lie to is myself… So I know I am yours forever. I will fight for us harder than I have ever fought for anything. I will live for you more than I have ever lived for anything. I will worship you more than any man has ever worshiped a goddess. I will love you complete and more completely than I have ever loved. I will never give up, I will always stay, and I will never let you go.
TheGrayJedi 