happy birthday ba

The one thing I have noticed over the years, as you and I get older, is we’re getting softer. And I don’t mean this in a bad way, I don’t mean we are getting weak or feeble or absent minded. What I mean is, we laugh easier. We forgive easier. We look around us, and while we still worry, we are finding it easier to relax. I think that bothers us on some level. We still feel that urgent need to get things done, to protect and plan, but’s different, it doesn’t have that same do or die taste to it. Instead, we look around us and see what we have built, what has come out of the toil and hard work. We’re actually having a chance to admire it, to breathe it. Sure, we still want more, we still want to grow and secure a future, but at least, now, we can take the time to reflect and to say, despite all the things we could’ve done differently, and I want you to know this, to understand what I telling you, despite all the regrets and could’ve would’ve should’ves, you have given us so much baba, so much you have taught us and given us and prepared us. I do not deserve the father you are to me, I truly don’t and sometimes I don’t know quite know how to measure up, other than to try to do what you do, think like you do, prepare the foundation for a better life for my kids, and hopefully, their children. Like you have baba, like you have.

 
 

Happy birthday

 
 

Always,

me

there is no place

my love,

 
 

There is no place without you, there is no breath, there is no hope or joy or -wait. This is crap. This is drivel. This is beneath me. This is not what you signed up for.

 
 

This is not what I promised you. This is not what was on my mind on the tram over Randall’s Island. This is not what was on my mind when I kissed you for the first time in November. This is not what was on my mind when we walked from Lark St to the Blockbuster on Colonial Ave. This was not what was on my mind when I wrapped my arm around you for our first dance as a married couple. This was not what was on my mind in Paris avoiding the hustlers at Sacre Coeur. This is not what I promised you when we looked at the bones of this house and thought we could raise a family here.

 
 

You were never hope or a place or a fleeting thought. You walked into a room and we went outside and never came back. You walked into a room and everything became something. You walked into a room and I disappeared.

 
 

You walked into a room and we were, as if we had always been and will be, always and forever

 
 

happy twentieth

me