Themeattics

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Tom Bodett

Hello, Dwellers. Glad to be back, even if that’s only partially true. This past week was a bit of a whirlwind, but certainly one of the best I’ve had in a while. I’d planned to come back all fired up to hit the ground running on my official start of 2024 – to get my nose to the grindstone, bang out a slew of goals, and start the laboring. And, yes, I have done most of that, but that’s not what I’m here to cover. Not today. No, today I’d rather lean into something better. Something more important. The joy – the true, honest joy – of family.

It’s funny, when I went looking for quotes for this post, the vast majority of family-focused ones were negative. Either they were bemoaning the shackles we have to blood or claiming thanks that the “real” families we have are the ones we create with friends along the way. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – I tend to look for quotes from authors or novels, and what are artists if not people generally damaged and seeking ways to create around those wounds. That’s one of the great tragedies of art, I suppose – the best tends to arise from deep, personal wounds. Tapping into that reservoir to create real, tangible pain. And, really, who is more able to inflict damage like that than those closest to us? Than our families?

I’m blessed to not have suffered that sort of childhood and to continue to maintain a good relationship with my parents. That blessing has carried a lot of weight in my life, and I want little more than to give that gift to my children as well. To let them know that they’re safe with us. That they can come to us with whatever problems they may have, whatever thoughts and needs, and we’ll be there for them. We might deny them, yes, but from places of love and with a fully fleshed out reason and explanation. We want to leave nothing in the dark for them, and so far it’s seemed to be working well. They’re young, yet, but so far so good.

The kids and I always spend a little time every day doing something fun, frivolous, or useful. I want to be there with them in all of those things as part of expanding on the above. We’ll watch a show or read a book or play a game. We’ll pray. We’ll do chores. Involvement is the name of the game.

As a parent, I think you rarely get the big payoffs you dream about. The sappy sort of moments from stories. In the back of your mind, you hope you will every so often, but you go through your days pretty much dismissing them in favor of the routine. They’ll come to you with homework issues, they’ll come to remind you that it’s time to watch Spy X Family, they’ll come to get advice on how to approach a problem with their friends. And we guide. We guide and guide and guide, navigating an increasingly perilous landscape filled with landmines and bear traps, hoping that we can give them a glance at those dangers while shielding them from the damage they can inflict.

Sometimes, though. Sometimes those moments do come through. Sometimes, you’re on vacation, enjoying a show and laughing at one of your ridiculous offspring doing some equally ridiculous dancing, and another will come up, hug you, and thank you for nothing in particular. Sometimes you’ll get to be there and see the look in their eyes when they get their first experience of professional artistic talent, and when they later lean in and tell you that’s what they want to do when they get older. Sometimes you get those moments, those little slices of success, when you understand how worth it all of this has been. How beautiful these bonds are and how fully, painfully, important they must be.

I like to play at being an author, but I can’t begin to speak on the joy those moments bring. Not in a way that would do it justice. Not right now.

Be there for your families, my friends. Be a shoulder for those in need and a staircase for your children. Lift them. Guide them. Create the world you want to leave behind, one day at a time.

Yes, I’ve got goals. Lots of goals. Goals in faith, in health, in art. Each and every one of them must take into account those around me. Those closest to me. Goals for myself alone are destined to fail – and they should. The world isn’t about me. It never was, but it especially isn’t now. Not since I said “I do.” Not since we brought new life into the world all those years ago. I think, perhaps, I lost sight of that a little these past few years. Not anymore.

2024 will be a banner year, Dwellers. A new leaf. A rising tide. Let’s raise all these ships together.