473,040,000 seconds. I didn’t know fully what to expect that Summer day when you smiled at me. How could either of us appreciate the journey we were about to embark upon? Our plan was to simply have some fun in life, something we both needed as surely as we needed air to breathe. No, I didn’t know what to expect or what I was getting myself into. It scared me as much as it thrilled me.
Since that moment, I have watched us grow into full-fledged adults. We have laughed and we have done the hard things, neither of us naive enough to believe there aren’t more hard things to endure. The seconds that will follow still scare me as much as they thrill me.
378,432,000 of those seconds have been shared with you, in the grandest experiment to be imagined…parenthood. Part science project and part creation of art, the laughs have outnumbered the tears to this point. Somehow, we have managed to not screw the whole thing up, all the while growing closer to each other.
Neither of us were looking for these sublime seconds that we’ve shared since that Monday in June. Somewhere along the way, quietly and earnestly we decided to keep pulling in the same direction. And pull we have. A strange paradox has been created, where I can remember every one of those 473,040,000 seconds since you smiled at me, though it is difficult for me to imagine a second before, without you.
However we measure our time together, I’m thankful I get to measure it with you.
The Curated Man 