I spent three day alone, and man is it different. I guess it has been so long that I really didn't remember what it was like to be by myself.
Starting with Sunday night... I have mentioned before that the computer is a big deal in our household. Well, on Sunday after I dropped my wife off with her cousin (they rode up together), I basically spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the computer. I went web-surfing, I played video games, I downloaded a new video game off of a website. Nobody told me that I couldn't, nobody needed my attention, and nobody needed a turn.
I went to bed late, and woke up early on Monday morning. And when I woke up, it was like someone had flicked on a switch in my head. I was up. Even though I technically hadn't slept as long as usual - maybe more accurate to say would be that I hadn't spent as much time trying to sleep as usual. Nobody kicked me, or bumped me, or tried to climb in with me because they had a bad dream. I just fell asleep, and slept straight through.
And if I had such a great afternoon, evening, and night, then why did I start to think of my wife and wonder where she was as early as 3:18 Sunday afternoon?
Life has thrown me an interesting curve ball. I had the chance to spend my time doing anything I wanted, and what I ended up wanting is to sit down at the dinner table with my wife and kids.
Before I had kids, an old friend told me that I may have thought that I knew what love it, but I did not. He said that I would love my children more than I thought possible. It would be an entirely new experience. He did't mean anything by it. He said it just as a way of explaining something to me that I had never experienced before. I believed him, I had not reason to doubt him, and fair enough - I never knew how right he was until I had children of my own.
I am a big proponent of individual choice, and leaving people free to make their own decisions about their own lives. And I never give advice. Pretty much every bad decision I have ever made, in both my personal and professional life, has been the result of someone who loved me, and cared for me, and wanted the best for me doing their very best to give me the best thought out advice that they could to to help me be happy and successful, and then me following it. So I am definitely not one of those people who says that people in their 30's and 40's who have been married and never had children are somehow being "selfish". But I can say the my life would be incomplete without my family.
And there was no way for me to know that until I got married, and had children.
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