Speak up.

Dear Sean,

I miss the sound of your voice. I miss the long brown lashes around your shiny brown eyes. I miss kissing you, I miss your warmth. The way you'd fall asleep waiting for me to get ready. I miss your calls ten times a day, I miss calling to tell you about a rainbow or the moon or the house I just drove past.
I miss your stupid banter, the monkey out of the bottle, the rhetorical questions, the smirk on your face. I miss you standing behind me. The arms around my waist, the kisses on the cheek. I miss dancing to silent music, swaying back and forth in the middle of a public place and knowing what song you were playing in your head, seeing your smile when you spoke a line and I finished it. I miss you driving my car, holding your hand, squeezing three times, and kissing your prickly cheek. I miss your oil stained hands, how your hats smelled, and finding your socks under my bed every day. I miss how you eat, I miss wearing your shirts, I miss doing your laundry and leaving notes to find in your books.
I miss browsing stores for hours when we only needed diapers because everything sparked your interest. I miss your excitement, the way your eyebrows rose with your widened eyes and tears filled them up the first time Brynlie kicked inside of me. The way your hands never left my stomach after that. Your innocence, your sincerity. And the purity I felt, knowing that to you, this was once in a lifetime.
I miss the look on your face when you saw me in the delivery room shaking and turning blue, because I knew you were just as terrified and confused and seeing you was enough to calm me down. I miss you being my strength, and the hope that you would be the one to raise Mae if anything went wrong. I miss the way you looked at her, how afraid you were to move, how softly you spoke and loved every little thing she did. I miss having someone with me through all the times I didn't know what to do, and having you to remind me to breathe.
I miss you spinning poi everywhere we went, how at first I wished you'd stop before you smacked someone in the face, but a few weeks later I was politely asking people to step back so they didn't mess up your back spin. I miss how friendly you were, all the time. I miss forgetting about fearing people and trusting that this world is a good, good place. I miss knowing that we weren't leaving where we were, until we had done something nice for someone else.
I miss the way music moved you like it did me, the way you could keep up with me and didn't mind at all if I kept dancing all night. I miss wondering where you came from and how one man could be so good at everything. I miss you grabbing me and lifting me up when our songs came on, I miss every sappy line being about us because it was just so true. I miss slow dancing to Kaskade because it was our moment to hear "Only You," and we needed to look each other dead in the eye, foreheads touching, alone together among thousands of people. I miss every day in this world feeling just that way.
I miss getting "mad" at you for calling me baby girl. I miss you calling me baby girl. And I miss you being my boy. I miss telling people our story, the way old friends would look at you when they heard how long we had been together, the way anyone would look at you when they heard you were with me through an entire pregnancy, at every doctor's visit, and took me to your prom with a 7 month belly. When they heard you were still by my side, visiting us at mommy school on your lunch break, barely graduated and working two jobs, paying for an apartment, a car, and secretly an engagement ring. I miss the look we'd get that assured me that I had the best man in the world. For choosing to become an 18 year old father.
For coming over every night after working all day, just to hold Mae before bed. And asking to pick her up out of her crib the rest of the night. For taking me to my prom, for making it so absolutely perfect, rose petals and all, and for getting down on one knee... for being so brave, so pure, so unconditional. I miss your face when I said yes, the same look you gave me each and every time our eyes met. I miss the kisses on the hand, your twenty squeezes in reply to my three, and how much you loved my ring for you... even though it was way too big. I miss your notes, your cards filled with tiny, scrawly writing, "I'm proud of you," and "I can't wait," and flowers because you were at the store getting batteries.
I miss the way you'd say good morning without saying a word, and missing each other across a room. I miss our movie stubs and concert tickets pinned on your wall. I miss surprising you with makeshift date nights when we couldn't get out. I miss "team Jacob," victory dance on game night, and waltzing under the stars to Frank Sinatra in my polka dot dress with you still in your work clothes. I miss chip and salsa movie nights and the couch being plenty of room for us because we never could get too tangled in each other. I miss feeling like I was always enough.
I miss your forgiveness, your relentless faith in us, your grace and determination. I miss the way mercy feels when the only thing that lead me away from you was fear, and you were never too afraid to pull me back in no matter where I had gone. I miss your humble heart, how you never understood why I felt I didn't deserve you. I miss your passion, seeing that love wasn't just something you'd been told you needed, it was your food, your sunrise, your air. I miss coming back to you, after we'd both been too fed up to apologize, and feeling everything all over again, wondering how I ever thought anything else would do. I miss being irrevocably in love with you.
I miss my best friend, you reminding me to be good to my sister no matter what, and being freakishly good at shopping for women's shoes. I miss you insisting on taking pictures no matter how awful I thought I looked. I miss the ninja sword fights and embarrassing each other in public. Mostly you embarrassing me; daily. How quickly you came up with such ridiculous things to say to our servers and the pranks you'd pull that were too good to be mad about. I miss annoying each other so badly we were grabbing each others faces yelling "I love you so friggin much" through angry gritted teeth.
I miss how my grandma looked at you, hearing how much she loved you, and how she and my grandpa made you tear up... because they would both look you in the eye and call you a great man. I miss hiding my phone at school and work and smiling at it ear to ear as I stared at your texts. I miss doodling your name on all my papers and bolting outside when I heard your engine revving. I miss you never being impressed by anything but a good heart, I miss feeling like the envy of every girl in the room because I had yours.
I miss your style, your plaid shirts, your handmade jewelry, how you pulled off looking handsome/clean/rugged/artistic/athletic/urban at the same time and how much your necklaces meant to you. I miss you showing off your MMA skills, I miss the constant sparring, teaching me grappling, and pretending I could win. I miss you treating me like glass, how you managed to wrestle and play with me in the gentlest way, how you pulled my whole body closer with one arm, the way you moved around me and made me feel weightless, effortlessly. I miss the perfect sleeping positions, how every inch of us molded to each other in the best way. I miss baby Brynlie Mae Halladay in the middle and watching your eyes start to flutter and close with hers. I miss how incredibly handsome you are. I miss your hair, wrapping your curls around my fingers when it got long, pulling and smoothing the nape of your neck, and how much you shivered and grinned and loved it.
I miss the drive to your mom's house, the one time of year we'd take the longer way hoping to get stopped by the hundreds of sheep in the road again. I miss stopping to explore the pioneer church and flooded houses along the way, I just miss everything being an adventure. I miss superbowl parties, Christmas parties, and Thanksgiving in the shop with your family, and making a few extra banana-cream pies JUST for you. I miss how hard you'd laugh at Brynlie being blown back by the giant fan and how you'd apologize for having a drink even though I helped you with it. I miss seeing your black truck and your eager smile and putting pennies in a jar to save for the parts it needed, because I knew how good you'd look in it. I miss talking about our future, dreaming about buying the house across the street, dreaming of horses and paint colors and a porch swing. I miss walking to the house down the road to drool over the Chevy Nova in the driveway and the look on your face when I asked if we could skip the reception and get you one. I miss loving that small town and the idea of living so close to your mom, because I couldn't love or respect a woman more. I miss hearing you talk about her, how passionate you've always been about what she went through to give her kids the world and seeing what family really means. I miss talking about it all with papa Scott, how grateful you were for him, and hearing "Be good to each other, love each other" from that great man that was your second chance at a father, and feeling the same thing for my daughter right by my side.
I miss those sleepovers we didn't have to sneak, the way we felt free to hold each other on our bed of cushions by the fireplace, without a care in the world. Waking up slow, letting you sleep in and having a cup of coffee with Mom... I miss the simplicity, the beauty in those things. I miss you teasing David about hitting on your girlfriend, I miss his bright red cheeks and his embarrassed laugh when I put my arm around him. I miss going down to see his games, how proud you are of him, and only going without you, because you couldn't get the night off. I miss him mimicking your demeanor, stealing your hats, and looking up to you because he knew you'd do anything to make him smile.
I miss the sky, how we gravitated to it, hours passing by laying on the grass, and driving all the way up the canyon just to sit in the back of the truck and look up. I miss you being my escape, my favorite place to rest my head, and how you made me feel underneath a billion stars. I miss spending entire nights talking and never running out of room to explore in each other.
I miss calling you baby, stealing kisses, the gentle snow that came down on us in the hot tub, the moments never depicted as well as they really were. I miss being okay with all the unanswered questions of the universe because you'd be there under the stars with me, curious, talking, sharing, dreaming. I miss being with the people you love, with you, seeing our future with them and feeling I couldn't get enough of their company... rather than feeling so lost between them and the idea of having to say goodbye. I miss being with them, and not aching for you. I miss picking up a guitar without crying. I miss the way your grandpa hugged me at his birthday, so much different than the way he hugged me at the hospital. I miss so many things I can't say, so many things that really can't be said at all. I miss looking at you, I miss saying your name, and telling you how much I love you. I miss telling you, in any way, that I miss you.

Learn.

        I've always had the stubborn inclination to be self taught in all the wrong things. Guitar, parenting, piano, how to "grieve properly"... I keep insisting on learning the hard way so I guess this is me taking notes. What hasn't killed me has shown me what life could become, and how it will empower me to save myself.

Step One, every day, is Learn.

verb: learn; learns; learned; learning

1.

gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught.

      The learning process is relatively simple. You + experience ÷ life = adaptation/knowledge. 

 Your perspective is never an isolated incidence, you had to learn everything, from acquiring your very basic needs to letting go of your ego. And every day you learn some of the same things over and over, i.e.: Parenting, the never ending test of all tests. Ideally all of life's lessons are mastered before you're given the opportunity to then teach them. Seeing as that's hugely impossible since becoming a parent IS the ultimate lesson, you have to rely on evolution.

Yeah, I said evolution. I believe everything changes, like on a molecular level, and you must be willing to happily adapt. (If you won't, congratulations, your stubborn depraved selfishness will serve you well and your children will be of little value to you. Sure, skip class, have fun trying to justify that to whoever created you and didn't toss your ungrateful ass aside. Necessary rant; over:) Adapt to a whole new reality; You were wrong about everything, you know nothing, and you must learn quickly. Because never has time been so real as when you pressed start on another soul's stopwatch.

Basically, change is vital in learning. This mental shift is (in my opinion) the most important because once you've made the choice to embrace it, it never stops, never rests. There's never an option to pass on parenting or put it on hold. It will test you in every way, until you wonder if you ever had limits. A harsh cynic is hatched in your head that says "You must be better, so she will be her best." "Hey remember how you did this last time? You can do better, right now" and "That isn't what she deserves. Change something. Work harder. Fix it." The paradox is, selflessness creates limitlessness, I think that's why we choose it.

Into the wee hours of the morning we count how many vegetables they ate that day, come up with ways to compensate for a missing father role, revise lessons on the crucial values of life, and dream about all of it going as planned. Then throughout the day, we come up with a thousand plan B's.

Every word, thought and action is under review and if you try to escape that fact you'll live with your now tripled conscience. Did I mention you can never go back to fix the effects? Nothing will push you harder than looking at the mother you were a few years ago thinking "I can't believe I thought that was good enough." You will know it has never been about You, and it never again will be. But in this work, you reap the most. The things that reinvent you but have nothing to do with you at all, always carry the greatest rewards.These are the things you need to experience. 

 Of course it doesn't end there; all that you think, seek and do build upon each other.
Children are the constant thought, the highest goal, the ultimate career. How will we ever get it?

You learned how to get the job you wanted by absorbing the requirements to get it, right? "Must have Doctorate degree in awesomeness? CHECK!" Then you magnified the qualities needed to get there in yourself; The shoe fits and you're wearing that bad boy to the interview. The pep talk in your head beforehand would go something like this: 

"Confidence. I have everything they need and more, I bring something to the table. Nothing to lose if I do my best. I exceed expectations, I am more than qualified, I am passionate. There's no reason I can't do this. Relax." 

Then suddenly you realize the things that your brain comes up with in challenging situations are the most honest things about you as a whole. And you believe it; Potential, realized. Suddenly, parenthood isn't so much a test or a spot you're auditioning for... the test was positive my friend, you landed that spot so abruptly it even surprised you. You probably just forgot what you were capable of.

  But these are the things you should know about yourself, not just when you want more than anything to succeed and become something worth the precious time you spent dreaming about it. Not just when you ache to give yourself to every cause that might, maybe, someday, save someone. Not just in those moments, not just in front of your child, but in every moment of every day when you realize the dream is now. It is alive and here, and here's the big picture... it is not yours. It isn't about how prepared you are to teach a five year old how to tie their shoes, you put yours on already remember? They will learn, and they'll follow you in them, so go somewhere good.

 Now, right NOW is the best thing you have. Courage, passion, love... You have everything you need, you bring more to the table than you may have been willing to consider possible before. You have nothing to lose and everything to give, you will exceed expectations, you will surprise people and see smiles across beautiful, grateful faces. You are over qualified for this life because you are not OF this life. Passion and a thirst for greatness fill you because God fills you with love that is too big for your body to hold. There is no reason you should hold back or be idle or settle for what doesn't meet you in the greatness you feel. There's no reason you can't do anything.

Now this doesn't mean you have to solve the problems of the world and save every soul you encounter, but you should try. This means you're lucky enough to think bigger than your basic needs, lucky enough to have desires; you're not just trying to survive, you're blessed enough to want to thrive. This means you need to teach yourself that what you're doing, NOW, is the most important thing you will ever do, it's all relevant, it all matters. Learn to recognize the things you are feeding into that feed ON you and 

your precious moments, and don't be victimized by them.

What is happening RIGHT NOW is the best life lesson you have to learn and teach others, and the opportunity to take it is constant. The smiles of gratitude that you notice, the happiness you see, the goodness you witness and the beauty in everyone and what they have to offer... if you're aware of it all, you've learned this lesson before. That takes humility and selflessness and an open heart. Be proud of that, you've earned it through trial. If you have to learn these things over and over, every day, your time will never be wasted and eventually you won't doubt yourself, you won't need a pep talk, you'll give yourself credit for learning and surviving the lesson.

These are the things I'm talking about... These fractions of a whole that compose our lives will, without a doubt, time and time again, save us. They are redemption. They are clarity, peace, the manifestation that all is connected and you are playing your part. One day you wake up and know that nothing about this life is yours. Your soul dances with excitement for the sunrise because there's a blonde little angel in the next room that makes a sleepy blue eyed giggle under her covers when you come in singing good morning. This. This is heaven.



 Here's a few things I picked up recently that I've learned [see above] over time (and am working on constantly) that lay the foundation to love. (Like I said before, this is just me taking notes, reminding myself, but hoping the insight gives back.) After this pattern becomes a habit, you can forget yourself and truly live in the NOW, beautifully. I've learned that most things work in cycles. If we can center our efforts on something unfailing, a control point, and consistently maintain it, everything else will fall into place around it. It really does start with you, loving yourself, and "Kaizen," a term that means "a little improvement, every day."

 1. When I'm PHYSICALLY fit, I have the energy to encourage, to try and try again and try something different for someone who doesn't have the tools to help themselves.

2. When I'm EMOTIONALLY stable, I have the personal confidence to push someone else to do their best, even when it's scary, I have the strength to keep doing hard things for the person.

3. When I'm SOCIALLY stable, I know I have a healthy support system I can depend on and can be intentional about how I interact with who I love unconditionally, always acting only to support and empower them, never asking for a return.

4. When I'm INTELLECTUALLY fit, I'm driven to learn all I can about what is going on for the person -  their health, how environments are affecting their mood / behavior, and can see solutions more effectively.

5. When I'm SPIRITUALLY stable, I see the person differently, I see myself differently. I'm aspiring to something higher - a higher purpose, a higher standard of living. The person has infinite worth, I have hope for them to have a healthy life, a great life.