Just now, as I was finally, at last, sitting to write some thoughts down, my little A… asks me for chicken nuggets. She has done this several times this morning, while I prepared her special nutrition formula which we give her by g-tube, while I installed two light bulbs in my wife’s closet, and then set a new rug in the lanai, and then put the ladder back in the garage, and then put a diaper on her.
I guess this is who I am. A father, a husband, a furtive writer.
I have started reading Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, and was touched by the sentence: “Why did I feel so overwhelmed with duty, tired of being the primary breadwinner and the housekeeper and the social coordinator and the dog-walker and the wife and the soon-to-be mother, and–somewhere in my stolen moments–a writer…?”
I wondered if my wife has felt like that. I know I have felt like that. And it dawned on me: To have a happy marriage or relationship, you have to know who you ‘have’ to be in that relationship; yet, to be a happy person within a marriage, or relationship, you have to know ‘who’ you are. Who am I?
Reaching my mid-sixties, this has been the most pressing question in my mind, in my heart. I am determined to get an answer, to find myself. I urge you to do the same, whatever your age is right now.
Then again, we may all be searchers, wanderers through life in search of meaning, in search of an identity, in search of a reason for being itself. Could that be the meaning of the parable of the Prodigal Son?
And as you walk through this amusement park called life, remember to enjoy every ride you get on: the husband and wife ride, the son and daughter ride, the mother and father ride, the student, laborer, writer, creator, inquisitor, observer rides; they all will lead you on a journey to find yourself.
“Water? Yes, A… give me a moment.”
Copyright 2017, J. G. Herrera
WONDERFUL SIMPLICITIES By Author J. G. Herrera 