This Is How I Love You

It has been a long time since I've posted on my blog.  I've been undergoing a phase of personal transformation, and I didn't feel steady enough to post here, but recently my mind has turned more and more to the blog.  Today, my mind locked on an idea that I finally felt compelled to bring to the page.  Here goes...

I've been making a lot of changes in my life recently.  Examining the way I identify myself, making career moves, and trying to become more present in my life in real ways.  As I was working around the house this afternoon, my mind drifted back to a story I wrote during grad school at Pacific University.  It was titled "The Little Things" and it was one of the most personal stories I wrote during that phase of my life.  It was also the story that taught me the most about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to live my life.  As I was elbow deep in dirty toilets today, I thought back to the things I learned in writing that story.  And this is what I thought about as I scrubbed away.

Recently, I created this chalkboard for myself.

Self-imposed chalkboard chores

I don't know why the idea came to me in this particular form, but I know that the idea came from the feeling that I was somehow disconnected from my own home, from my family.  I've recently taken a position that requires me to work nights, a situation that removes me from the evening escapades of my family, and I was feeling like I wasn't present when my family was in the home.  I couldn't miss work, so I had to find another way to participate in my family's life.  This was one small answer to that nagging feeling.

In a marriage, in a family, there are all kinds of compromises that must be made, all kinds of sacrifices that must be made in order to keep the family unit afloat, but that doesn't mean that I had to be absent, or inactive, in my family's life.  The chalkboard chore board gave me an opportunity to feel like I had contributed to my family in a real way.  It allowed me to be of assistance to my loved ones, even if I couldn't do so by being physically present in the room.

My chores are an expression of my love.  My contribution to the household is a way of leaving a love letter every day that shows my family that I love them and want to help them navigate their busy modern lives.  My love may not be present in a hug or a kiss at bedtime, but my love is the scaffolding that holds up the structures that enable them to be successful in their lives.  Each of these things are small, minuscule efforts, things that can be done in short periods of time, but they still are what they are...they are expressions of my love for my family.  They are a statement that says I am there for them in all the ways that I can, even if some of those ways are "invisible."

I don't like the fact that I barely get to see them these days, but I will make every effort to make sure that I am a presence in their life in all the "little" ways that I can.  It sometimes takes a little swallowing of pride, a little mental coercion to get myself to play "Suzy Homemaker," but when I am done at the end of the day, when I've taken a chore off my spouse's plate, or prepared the home to receive my daughter, I feel like a man.