Mr. Wilson, fatherhood becomes you

I sure write a lot about motherhood and how it's changed me, but I don't think I've told you too much about Josh's fatherhood. Today is certainly an appropriate day for that.

Some of my most treasured days of our marriage are those first days after Asher was born. I can't adequately describe the renewed and amplified love I felt for my husband as I saw him love and care for our newborn son. Josh has taken very well to fatherhood; it brings out in him a tenderness and softness I don't think I would have seen otherwise. He's playful and silly, kind, patient, and protective. And Asher simply adores him. I wish you could see Asher's face when Josh comes in the door after work. It's like Asher's whole world just doubled in goodness.

I love how fatherhood has affected my husband. It forges a connection between us that is unique and intimate. As I see Josh with our son, my heart swells and leaps, because he made me a mother and I made him a father. We wouldn't be who we are without each other. Our souls and destinies are forever connected, more than they ever were before his fatherhood and my motherhood.

Happy Father's Day, Mr. Wilson. I love you.

the second time I fell in love with him

I let his calls go to voicemail twice. I answered the third time. I wasn't angry or even nervous. I was certainly curious. What could Josh have to say to me now, a year and a half since we'd broken up? In spite of all the empirical evidence against Josh, I agreed to see him. Frankly, I had nothing to lose.

{Christmas break 2009, three months after he called}

(For a while I wondered why I'd had that other serious relationship during my Josh hiatus. Why go through something so intense if it was never meant to be? Now I'm positive that that disappointing and frustrating relationship set me up perfectly to let Josh back into my life. Josh's phone call on that exact day wasn't luck or coincidence--it was Providence.)

After some pep talks from my mom, sister, and good friend Laura, I was ready to spend real time with Josh--no commitment, no promises, just time. We talked, and we talked about real things and real emotions. If you read Josh's post about the baby, you'll know that while Josh certainly has feelings, he has an incredibly hard time talking about them. But he voiced his feelings about me and invited me into his life in a way he never had before.

Over the next days and weeks I noticed changes in how I felt about myself. When I was with Josh I felt wanted and loved, a stark contrast to what remained from my previous relationship. The more I saw him the more I wanted to see him. After a month and a half of me holding back and him ardently persisting, I said yes. Let's try this one more time.

It wasn't long before I fell in love with him again, but don't mistake this love for the first love. I needed to fall out of love with Josh before I could fall again. My first love was something that I let happen to me; I surrendered parts of myself that needed to be there. This time, my love was a choice. This was a love matured and refined, felt and chosen. My love the second time had no ties to the love from before. Our first love hadn't been sustainable; our second one was--is--deep, enduring, beautiful.

{At my grandmother's funeral, 2010, three weeks before he proposed}

I choose you, my heart said to his. I choose to love you and to have you love me. I choose you every moment. You're my choice forever.

a small interjection from Mr. Wilson . . .

This couple's "how we met" story is about to reach its conclusion. Our heroine will find resolution, and the hero will find redemption. Let me set the stage for Act III:

I was casually involved with a girl down the hall, and on this particular day she and I were looking through some of my photos on Facebook. We came to a photo of Charlotte and me and I thought to myself, I would really like to see her again. I kept this sentiment to myself, and politely excused myself to make a quick phone call outside. I believe this is where our story picks up.

Any one of several thoughts may be going through your mind right now. "What does casually involved mean?!", "Was he picking up on two girls at the same time?!" or simply "What a tool!"

Your indignation is justified, and I am not proud of what you have just learned. But I think that it is the flawed characters of literature that are the most interesting, don't you?

when I fell out of love with him

It was hard for me to move on. Every day on my way to campus I'd pass his apartment complex, wondering whether I'd see him and what I'd say or do if I did. We had several run-ins that school year, some accidental and some not. Every time I pretended that I'd gotten over it, but I hadn't. I tried and tried not to think about him; my heartbreak was active and ever-present.

My moment of absolution came in the grocery store one day in February. I saw Josh in the cereal aisle, and when he turned on the charm I wasn't swayed. What followed could only be described as something straight out of a Meg Ryan movie. I left empowered and free. In the months after our grocery store encounter I pieced myself back together and emerged whole and healed. That summer I fell in love with someone else.

***

That interim relationship could easily win its own narrative, but I'll truncate it. It started out simple and turned complicated. After a few months it started crumbling, but I dived into denial and told myself it would work. But it wasn't working. I was unhappy. I didn't feel valued or loved or important by the person I was with.

That's when my phone rang, when my phone displayed "Josh Wilson" for the first time in nine months.

the first time I fell in love with him

First off, thank you for all your kind comments on my post the other day. They were truly thoughtful and kind, and it's so relieving to know that I'm not alone in sometimes feeling out of my element as a mother.

This month marks five years since I first met Josh. I remember it so clearly. Katelyn and I were at a friend's dessert party (can you say BYU party?), a party that, frankly, I didn't really feel up for. But Katelyn convinced me to attend. The first time I saw Josh he was heading up a back massage train. (Yes, a back massage train.) We clicked immediately, and even though it took him three weeks to call me, he did, and the next month and a half was a blur of heart palpitations, infatuation, and incredible kissing.

{March 2008}

I was smitten. Oh so wonderfully smitten. This is it, I thought. He's it for me. I had never felt more compatible or alive with anyone. I went to a place where I relinquished myself to infatuation and unbridled giddiness. My mind and emotions were going faster than the rest of me could, leaving me vulnerable and exposed. I never told Josh that I loved him, but I felt it. This fledgling, immature love was very real and, looking back, also very unstable and insecure.

Then Josh broke up with me at the end of the semester. I was crushed, devastated, throwing-up-in-the-bathroom heartbroken. The break wasn't clean, though, and I clung desperately to the hope that in the fall we would pick up right where we left off.

The next time I saw him, when classes picked back up in September, he was hand-in-hand with another girl. My heart broke all over again.