Too Late to Sleep

Dear Readers,

I haven't felt well over the last couple days which in turn has rewarded me with a few luxuries, one of them being able to watch some movies I've wanted to see for a while and another has been updating my iPod.

Coincidentally the movies I watched were both about single people staying single. Both involved males being disappointed by their female counterparts. And both had the kind of ending that Disney would go out of business before producing. I'm not sure if you've seen the movies I'm speaking of, but because I hate to spoil anything for anybody, I won't mention their names. It's the theme I'm focusing on anyhow. In case you missed my theme, it's being single.

Before marrying Shay, or before dating Shay I should say, I had no desire to get married. In church it was one of the main focuses, so I guess you could say in my younger years I felt an obligation to get married, but that's different from desire. In a way it was a feminist issue, but really if you get deep down into my psyche it was more of a matter of giving up my independence that I had worked so hard for from a very young age. School, recreation, travel, job, all of these things took the front seat in my life. But then Shay showed up, and one by one school, recreation, travel, and my career all climbed in the back seat (where they fought constantly, I might add) and then when Lucas was born they became strangled hostages locked up in the trunk.

After reading that last paragraph, it makes it sound that Shay and Lucas are strangling me. I assure you, that is not the case (but it was such a clever anecdote I had to leave it, surely you understand). If anything they've taught me to live a different kind of life. One that's sometimes boring, almost always low key, but full of a substance that I was lacking in my single days. Which brings me to my iPod.

One of the artists I put on is one that you've possibly heard of. He's one of my dearest friends, Loren Reed. In his genius work entitled "Honce" he says, "The only words from that good book I could believe, "Man should not be alone...", " along with "I don't believe in God, I believe in the human bond, I believe in you and me, the love of a family...". I haven't sat down and thought about a couple of sentences so hard in a long time. Occasionally, I find myself pining for those younger days where I only had myself to worry about, where I only cooked for one and didn't feel guilty about missing a little league soccer game. But when I hear those lines through my headphones, and I watch the characters in the movies who find their selfishness as some sort of right of passage, I reconsider my rose colored past.

The fact of the matter is that no one else can make you happy but yourself. And I'm lucky enough to have people around me that I want to be happy for. I'm not saying marriage is for everyone; I'm not saying that marriage in general is for me. But I found a spouse that I like to be around, and who likes to be around me; however we allow each other to be what they need to be.

I think this is turning into more of a ramble than a blog, so I'll leave you for now. But before I go, I implore you to listen to Loren's music. You can find it at thechrishunt.com.

Sincerely,
h.