mommy turns 30

over the lifespan of this blog, you haven't seen too many "odes to sarah". and there are good reasons for that. firstly, that is not really the purpose for which this blog is intended. secondly, you would think that if there was anyone in this world that i would be able to communicate with person to person, face to face, cell phone to cell phone, and not have to trust my measured and deliberate blog posts to accurately affirm how special that person is, it would be my wife. you would think that, but you would be wrong. well, most of the time you would be.

if there has been one "sacred cow" as it relates to my sharing myself and my life with the internet-viewing public, it's been my marriage. it wouldn't be fair to me or to sarah to play out the daily peaks and valleys that both of our emotions go through online. it just wouldn't. and as it regards this site's centered mission, my hope is that our girls will notice first-hand how much i care for sarah and she for me and that anything in the future that they may read about along those lines would be overkill.

so, today's post will be an exception to my rule. but a lovely exception, indeed.

it's hard to remember, at this point, my life without sarah. so much has changed since september of 2000. so much has changed that when i try to put the last seven years into some sort of context, i need a sun to revolve my shady and sometimes muddled memories around. that sun, of course, has been sarah. i don't really know what she saw in me when we first met. she would probably tell you that i was nice and shy and different from certain boys she had wasted her time with before. she would probably tell you the story of how i wouldn't ask her to dance at our friends' wedding and she would leave out the part that it was, most likely, the champagne that loosened her up enough to ask me. she would probably tell you that our first conversation was nothing out of the ordinary but maybe everything out of the ordinary at the same time. she would probably tell you that, had she never called me after the wedding, i would have never called her (she'd be wrong.). and then she could tell you that i rightly played the role of gentleman when we went out to eat at some lousy diner that "had good vegetables" and never once did i think of telling her that such a place was quite foreign to me.

i don't remember too many specific details of our courtship. then again, i don't remember a lot of things. my brain is funny that way. i remember it was relatively short. i remember i gave her the crappiest, most boring proposal story that she ever could have imagined. and then we got married. and it was good. our honeymoon provided just the right amount of perfection and funny stories that ended up working out for our best that we glow about it today just like we did immediately after we got back.

for five and a half years now, she has come to understand how truly imperfect i really am. i have upset her. i have made her happy. i have dragged her through the mud and then helped to wipe her off. i have assisted her in making two beautiful girls. we are failing miserably (or triumphing brilliantly, depending on who you ask) at keeping their formative and most impressionable years free from curse words and reality tv. for the time we have been married, we have been very...human. case studies, even, in how it is not natural for selfish people to live together in "harmony" under the same roof and live to tell a completely happy tale. the trade-offs that we have made with and for each other have not been fair and balanced. she has never asked me to give up something i enjoy. she has never told me that i suck at basketball and that my attitude after losing a softball game makes her want to leave me. she has never told me that i am a dick for how i deal with my parents. she has never once questioned my spotty and sometimes spiteful relationship with god. she has never made me eat green beans. she has never told me that, if i cherished time on earth with my family, i should never eat a kikerburger again. she is always positive. always pleasant. even when she's sad. even when i am looking for a fight.

i, on the other hand, am not always so understanding. my wants, even when governed, feel like they should trump hers. i am a baby. i whine. currently, she is completely engrossed with saving my church's daycare, serving as a wonderfully vivid metaphor for the (way longer) time that i could not see past my staff responsibilities at the same church and in huntsville long enough to see her. and while i am proud of her and root for her success and wish for her to be involved to the point that she is no longer kevin's unseen "better-half", i want her home. i want her help. i need to be sure of her. nevermind that she is doing all this extracurricular championing on top of her "day job". nevermind that it is the most glorious and glaring example of "what church should be" that any member of our congregation is currently displaying. nevermind the bollocks. i just want my wife home. right?

of course not. of course i want her to share the same passion for what i believe is important. for my fuse and motivation have been extinguished with buckets of apathy and shortsightedness. the o'kelley's must represent. and she is fucking representing.

today, my sarah turns 30. she's nervous about it, because it sounds "old". she knows it's just a number and she knows she's being silly. the "sense of doom" that she feels is altogether natural and horrifying at the same time. mortality winking its twitchy little eye at you is never an easy feeling. she has been looking in my direction for comfort and there is little that i can offer that will help. tomorrow, she'll think about it less. and less the next day. she won't be fooling herself. that's just how it works. as miserable as we'd like to think that we are most of the time, there is way too much good to dwell on to worry with being sad constantly. life is good. depression is the art of telling yourself otherwise.

i am going to be fiercely honest. my life is good because of my sun, my sarah. there is no other reason. there is no other rhyme. that's it. yes, there are other good things and good friends and good family in my life. but my life is good because of her. and on this, the day of her 30th birthday, i will tell her that in many ways. and i will tell her that here, so she can read it at work and hopefully be happy. so she can reminisce some and remember that work isn't really that important, at least not today. i will tell her here so that none of you (and by you, i mean me.) will ever confuse my happiness with something as trivial as eli vick making me a giants fan for a quarter or the possibility of a high-school senior coming to play a game for a school i didn't attend.

finding the true meaning of my life and understanding what joy is and should be are gifts given to me by my god.

my happiness is rooted in the person that will share, in every way, the rest of my journey here on earth and, if we are lucky, for eternity.

happy birthday, sarah. i love you.