I’ve been thinking about this lately and I feel compelled to write it down. So I am.. here in this unknown and unseen blog. I guess I should tell someone about this blog so that, after I die, they can read my "will", or my desires for what to do with my funeral, or wake, or kick-ass party.. whatever materializes. I think I put something at the top of this blog that says "If I die before I wake", or "start here" or something like that. Anyway - on to the rambling rant I'm writing now:

I’m not positive, but I think marriage should happen while you are young, because then it really is a combined effort and shared commitment. Obviously I cannot speak about the realities of waiting until you're in your late 20's or early 30's to marry because I didn't do so. But an instinct inside my heart and head tells me that when and if you "wait", then attitudes will have already been developed, or will be actively developing, which affect, on possibly a subconscious level, attitudes and/or thoughts that cause reluctance or apprehension or whatever when it comes to the realization that marrying someone has far reaching implications. Implications that are shrouded in mystery and of going up against the unknown in perhaps one of the most important "fights" that you will ever have in your life. I think that marrying while in your 30's can lead to second-guessing other major life decisions and a general glazing-over of reality. My experience was that of marrying young, well, relatively young. I was 23, Helen was just 19. Sometimes I wonder how different things might have turned out had we waited another 4 or 5 years. My first thought is that my kids would not have come to be quite the same way they are. I mean they most likely would have been great, happy, smart, kind, and considerate people - like they really are, but definitely not the same kids. How could they be? Butterfly effect, etc...

I also wonder if Helen and I would have, by virtue of being 4 or 5 years older, been better equipped to deal with the normal emotional ups and downs of a committed relationship. Or that our capabilities to make it through the "tough times" and/or rough patches that come and go, and are a part of every relationship between two people, would have been more mature and therefore not ended in divorce for our marriage. It is impossible to know how things might have gone differently since any one of a million various scenarios could have played out.

I guess I'm trying to learn more about myself through thinking these things and questioning the merits or drawbacks associated with marrying while you are young, or waiting until you're just a little bit older before entering into such commitment with another human who has their own world of thoughts running through their head as well. I feel that I don't know what to say or suggest to my children if they ever ask my opinion or thoughts on this issue. Most likely they will never ask that of me as the events and experiences of their own adult lives will force them to ask, and answer these questions for themselves. It does not matter in the least whether I would like to be a grandparent sooner or later or never at all.

I guess the truest answer I can give myself is to just concentrate on my children's happiness and encourage and celebrate whatever decisions they may make - right or wrong, good idea or bad, because none of us has the ability to know for sure if what we are doing, or what we have done, is or was the "right" thing for our life. I want for all of my children the magic and wonder and adventure that Helen and I had. I also want for them the wisdom and possible better outcome in their lives if they wait before hitching their star to another person's sky. Time and circumstance has already sort of made decisions for each of them, and their futures remain to be seen. I suppose that is all anyone can expect and is what we should all become comfortable with. I just wish there was a way to know that everything will turn out fine for them. I think that "way" is called, simply, faith.

I love my kids with every fiber of my earthly presence and with every spark of eternal energy that resides inside of me. I hope I get the chance, or having been given that chance every time I see them, hug them or speak with them, to be able to instill in them the depth and purity of that love. Grand babies or not. Now or later. I am truly rich beyond my wildest dreams just to still be here and to be a part of their lives and to have them as such an amazing part of mine. But getting to play with, and spoil, and most of all - laugh, with my children's babies would be very wondrous indeed.