Love Letter to The Old Man

Dear The Old Man,

I've been thinking lots about how to write a love letter to you. It is especially challenging because:

A: You aren't impressed with mushy sentiments, and
B: You don't read my blog.

First, let's just get this out of the way: you are my eye candy. I can't help it. I think you are secretly getting hotter every year. Much of the allure comes from the fact that you've never owned a pair of cuff links, you've never had a manicure - except for that one time in high school when you were trying to impress a girl - and you don't moisturize. Yesterday when you were digging in the backyard, covered in dirt, measuring tape slung low across your hips... well, I just want to jump your bones.

Your scrumptiliciousness coupled with the fact that you don't talk much - well, that's every girl's dream. I remember the first gift you gave me. We were sitting in the pickup truck working on a mule deer study, watching the deer gather under the capture net. Too many bucks - we wanted does and fawns to collar. I found a quartz rock in the passenger seat. I held it up to you and you said, "Oh, yeah. I picked that up for you because I thought you'd like it." Then you went back to your sleepy arms-folded quiet pose. I still have that rock - it comes with the memory of the first full sentence you ever uttered to me.

I remember our honeymoon in San Francisco. You were raised on an alfalfa farm in Western Colorado and grew up hunting, fishing and smashing mailboxes for fun on the backroads because there wasn't anything else to do. It was only your third time on an airplane. I took you to the Castro to visit my gay friend at two AM in a bar that played Boy George. You had a great time. Your only comment the whole night: "So this is where all the gyms are."

And when I went back to work after The Kid was born, you were the one who taught him how to use a bottle. You were the one who said no to work obligations to take him to the doctor's office for fevers and colds and skin rashes and eye infections.

And every night, no matter how tired you are, you play with The Kid before he goes to bed. You invent whole worlds and games - the latest, origami mouths who eat origami frogs - to keep The Kid's imagination going.

The dog likes you better.

Feelings aren't your forte, but from day one you have listened to mine. I've never felt, like I have with past ex's, that my words weren't important.

Here we enter the realm of the intangible, and why love is so hard to describe. My guts, the viscera, my nerves and my brain all relax when you're near. I don't freak out. Someone once described me as "strung tighter than a piano wire." When I'm around you I'm unstrung.

I have loved deeply in the past. I don't believe that there is one person for whom all eternity is reserved. I know much of why we're together is based on practicality: we have the same interests, we were at the same point in our lives where we both wanted a family when we met. I've had more spiritual romances, relationships with more sexual sparks, jealous loves, more exciting romances. I would describe our love as steady, dependable. Our love is not a roller coaster of giddy highs and tearful lows. Maybe it's because we have both matured to the point where we look at our lives as a whole, rather than two points of view struggling against each other for dominance.

(At this point you're saying, "Our love is not a roller coaster? What??!!" Well, let me tell you honey, seriously, that compared to how it's been in the past, I am truly less crazy with you. For you, I think before I speak.)

I don't have the rock n' roll ride with you. Instead, I have a feeling of coming home, both body and soul, of looking forward to seeing you after work. Of comfort, of being able to act like me in my own skin.

I think you're a real man.

Real men get their hands dirty.
Real men give rocks.
Real men go to gay bars.
Real men take their kids to the doctor.
Real men do origami.

I love you.