The other morning, before anyone was awake (for the day, I'm sure we'd been up a hundred times during the night), I was in bed with a small hand in my face and I had sorted before me, in perfect order, a bulleted list of why I'm so envious of so many families. For years, since you'd called off the celebration of some sort of anniversary, I'd tried to convince myself that marriage didn't matter.

Last year told me otherwise. I found myself a person with a family, but completely adrift. Around me, were families, partners, couples, completely flawed, but devoted to the cause. With a starting point. With a destination. With goals beyond bedtime. I walked with the kids in the cold sunshine and thought, "Why can I imagine my children 5 years from now, but I can't imagine my face or your face?" I want that starting line, even if now it seems in the distant past. That's what they all have. They have an origin story that's not just a series of explosions and implosions. I want one of those.

Why now am I coming to this conclusion? Why can't we throw caution to the wind and risk being something other than waiting? Why am I mad that now, you, my only audience, will read this and think "How convenient that he felt compelled to write that," rather than holding my face in your hands (you haven't touched my face in YEARS) and loving me despite my failures? I love you. That's why.