Lonely Dad

It's funny, but I was going to post last week about how important social interactions class. Being that I have spent a few to several years of schooling studying social psychology and am now taking a class in the program called Teams and Work Groups, I was going to talk about how important social interactions are. How they increase life expectancy, decrease depression, have a salubrious effect on all of these health outcomes that outdoes not-smoking, exercising regularly, and even eating healthy, among other things. (Mind you, this effect has only been demonstrated for actual social interactions, and nothing media based. We often pretend like that's a legitimate outlet, but it's not.)

In the week and half that we had been home when I was going to write that post, we had gone to a barbecue with three other couples from the MBA program, been invited to dinner twice in our new ward, visited Scott and Elisha, hung out with a few other couples, and I was in school, teaching a bowling class, sitting down with every other student/friend in the program that I could whenever I had a free minute, and I was just loving it.

And then my wife and now 1-year old went out of town.

I have been able to exercise consistently for the first time in months, catch up on things that had to get done, oversee our house and make sure everything is getting completed, and I just feel so empty. I don't sleep well.

Normally, when Amy is home, I have the easiest time falling asleep, but now, even on days when I'm feeling tired and should be ready to go to bed, it takes me an hour or more to really fall asleep. I will doze in and out, but if I'm down for bed at midnight, it's often like 1:30 AM before I'm actually asleep. It's interesting the ways you get affected by things.

I can't even begin to explain the amount of joy that comes from being a father and husband. My knees get weak when I can come home and I know that Jane has heard me walk in and to see her turn around and start crawling quickly for me...it just melts me right into the ground. I love it.

To be honest, sometimes it's hard juggling the balance of wanting to spend my evening with Amy and connect with her and while also feeling like I need to get things done. But after having the last 5 or 6 days to myself doing whatever I feel like, all I want is for them to come home.

It's amazing the way love can develop. It becomes this deep and abiding feeling that matures and swells, occupying every piece of you out to the tips of your fingers and toes. I find it crazy and wonderful that I get to experience this as my marriage draws out and my kid, now kids, grow and physically lengthen.

This is my jam lately. Listening to it almost broke me down yesterday.