Why I choose to be a blogger

and my mission for this site

(Original Blog Post: Remember This Feeling)
October 7, 2020

Today I am reflecting on my life at its present moment, with a heart that is the most full it has ever been. It’s a radiant feeling I have to write about in hopes that I can revisit these moments and feelings again someday, anticipating soon it will all be changing. But for now, I am basking in the good; it’s the type of good that makes you forget who you are and start imagining the person you could be again, filling your head with dreams.

A little over 7 weeks ago my daughter was born, making the year 2020 — perhaps by my account only — the best year ever. This post is for her as much as it is for myself, if not more. My hope is that some day she will read this and understand just how much she’s changed my life, already.

I did the math again recently, after giving up completely on counting quarantine days somewhere back in May, and I have spent roughly 7 months at home with my wife and daughter, with very little to no interruptions at all. SEVEN MONTHS. Most of which have been due directly to the…persistency of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States, and the rest being 7 weeks out of total 12 of a paternity leave from my employer.

(Yes, you are reading that correctly. I am exceptionally fortunate to work for an employer that both believes in and offers a paternity leave — something that should be granted by all employers if you ask me, but that’s an argument for another day.)

Over the last 7 months I’ve thought deeply about this while also trying not to pull focus away from soaking up every second of this unprecedented, once in a lifetime kind of experience.

Months leading up to my daughters birth I worked from home mostly, as the COVID-19 Pandemic was causing state-wide store closures, and it really wasn’t the worst thing in the world either considering I was both healthy and safe — and of course still getting paid.

Additionally, at the start of transition to working remotely from home there really wasn’t much work to be done for the first couple months as I’m sure very few companies expected to need a prepared, full-operations remote business model on the fly. If anything, it felt like a 2 month paid vacation in comparison to my normal work duties, with the occasional training and weekly conference calls scattered throughout the day. Even after the remote work began, it really wasn’t that bad considering how many people were either being forced to go to work despite the pandemic, or being let go all together. I am not amiss of my fortune, and considered myself to be exceptionally blessed for this.

My wife was also home after being furloughed for a few months and ultimately leaving the company shortly before our daughters birth. We had already planned for her to leave, eventually, as she was already a succeeding photographer although working full-time in retail. When it came time for my wife to return to work following furlough, the safety precautions set in place were minimal, so we said what better time than now to leave the company?

We stayed busy in the beginning months with home renovation projects, having moved into an early 1960’s fixer-upper just over a year ago by now, and in quick need of a nursery. The room we had chosen was still missing parts of its walls and ceiling at the time, (among other both major and minor projects) so we spent a lot of time together turning this old house of ours into a livable, secure nest of homely vibes.

When the home improvement projects slowed, we simply moved onto enjoying the most of each other. I have always enjoyed deeply the company of my wife, which I suppose you would hope would be most cases, but I get the feeling it isn’t. But my wife since the day we met has been my best friend, and we were spending more time together now than we had ever been able to in our almost 7 years together.

Having someone to spend this time with in crazy times like these is a beautiful thing, and was vital in coping with sentiments of anxiety over the unknown state of the world — she kept me from drowning.

As months passed I begin to realize that working from home was allowing me to do something for my wife I’ve never done before — be there for her, unequivocally. Sun up, to sun down. If she needed anything at all, I was there within a quick reach which meant the world to me, especially through our pregnancy/pandemic journey.

We focused as much as possible on spending time together, and spending time getting ready to welcome our baby girl into this crazy world.

Since my daughters birth my days and nights have been a mixture of snuggles, swaddles, and dirty diapers on a continuous loop for 7 straight weeks — and truth be told, I have never been more content with life. She is very much one half of my everything; the other half — also my better half — being my wife.

During my leave we’ve ate breakfast, lunches, and dinners together at proper times! It’s been glorious! I have fell asleep when I wanted, and woke up when I wanted, (mostly…babies sort of make their own sleep schedules in the beginning) enough to have a consistent daily routine and schedule. It’s been rather empowering, and has allowed me to maximize my time, tackling more creatively, all while still being able to spend copious amounts of quality time with my family.

This is literally the stuff of which my dreams are made.

This is why I’m writing today — and this is why I created The Blog P is for Poetry — to remember this feeling most of all and create an outlet to record all my sentiments through growing my family; to remember how good it feels to be present in the lives of my wife and daughter, knowing this feeling will pass unless I do something about it — and most importantly that I want to do something about it.

I genuinely feel blessed to have had a fairly positive year, and still won’t be heading back into the office for yet another month — given there are no further store closures heading into the Fall/Winter months. Still, when I really think about the fact I’ve spent more time with my family in the past 7 months than I will be able to in more than a a few years time once I return to 50 hour work weeks, it encouraged me to make the very most of this time, and the little time I have left.