Where I'd Be

Not long ago, a group of us were talking and the guys were asked where we would be at that moment if it weren’t for our wives. Each response was different but in general we all agreed that place would not be as good a place as where each of us were at that moment.

I have given that question some thought from time to time since then. Sometimes when I do I think about the past and where I’ve been.

I can remember being a teenager wanting to taste the freedom that was so close but never really realizing until later in life how the freedom we inherit comes as a complicated gift. I can remember being with people in places and times I just knew I was meant to be for a much longer time than what transpired and how all those times now seem like a mere matter of moments, long gone. I can remember being a struggler, fighting some battle against myself or against someone and later realizing what a waste much of that effort really was. I can remember being on top of the world or so I thought before understanding life is full of valleys and mountains and how one day I stood at the mountain’s peak and the next day I sat crumpled on the valley floor.

Where I have been, where I might be and where I am are three different places. Two of those three sound very lonely to me now because I would not be where I am now without my wife, Jennifer.

Although I often write about our daughter, Hannah, in this blog, you should understand that the true hero of our lives is her mother, my wife, Jennifer. She and I have our own story, as all couples do. That story is not like Romeo and Juliet or Samson and Delilah and thank God for that since Romeo and Juliet didn’t end well, and well, neither did Samson and Delilah. When it is all boiled down, we’re just a boring couple by the standards set by TV and movies and romantic novels but we are a couple who look forward to growing older together. It’s practical and realistic yet rather romantic in it's own way, even if it's just to the two of us that feel that way.

I still find myself at times baffled at how complicated life can be but I share that now with her. I find myself sometimes bewildered at how quickly time passes and sometimes how the people we know are gone just as quickly but I share all that now with her. At times I still find myself struggling hard against things and she is there to remind me I can pick and choose the struggles that come my way and how I deal with them. And when I am on the valley floor, she’s there with me just as she is with me when I am on the top of the mountain.

Where would I be without her? I’m not sure. I am certain though that the place where we are now is the place I always want to be.