Apoplectic Skeptic

thakate:

And not only wishes you a happy mother’s day but asks you to tell his Dad thank you for choosing me. 

Now I’m crying. 

Proud papa.

I have a mom who loves me unconditionally, and I’m grateful she’s still with us after kicking cancer a few years ago. I have her love of music deep within my bones, and she’s a generous and full-hearted grandmother to my three kiddos.

That I get along with the mother of my children as well as I do makes me quite happy. Really. She’s an involved and dedicated mom to them, and there is no doubt she loves our kids beyond words. I am confident our refusal to use our kids as pawns in our divorce has meant good things not only for them, but for our relationships with them and each other.

I am lucky enough to have a mother-in-law who’s wickedly loyal, has a huge heart, and who has taken to my children being in her life as if they were from her own bloodline. What a blessing.

Even my former mother-in-law and I get along quite well, all things considered, with her warm hugs for both Tha Kate and me at virtually every function involving those same three kiddos who everyone seems to adore. I am so thankful.

But here’s what’s really cool, even with all of that motherly love in my life… I now get to spend my life with a woman who chooses to be a mom to my kids. She didn’t have to take on that role. I would have happily spent this life with her solely as my spouse. But she is The Most Amazing Stepmother Ever to my children… they ADORE and LOVE her, and I know their lives are better and brighter because of her influence, because of her unquestioned devotion and care for them.

I’m a ridiculously lucky man, and I am grateful beyond words for the love of the mothers in my universe.

rainydaysandblankets:

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be kept interested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I couldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and daily elects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness.

I don’t care if he was raised in this religion or that religion or no religion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every moment of life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common:

You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy

I’m so stealing parts of this in a few years.

[previously]

1. I refer to the event simply as a wedding, as opposed to a “gay” wedding or “lesbian” wedding or “same sex” wedding because I believe marriages are marriages and weddings are weddings, and it’s 2013.

2. I’ve edited the text slightly, removing the welcome and introduction (for privacy and length), as well as removing the last names of the brides (since virtually none of you know them).

3. thank you for your kind words of encouragement last week as I freaked out a bit as the day grew close… apparently I did alright, since I had 4 (four!!) job offers as officiant for future weddings before the reception was over (including the wedding coordinator who wants to “pimp” me out at “$500 a pop!”).

4. in the interest of full disclosure, there are two short sections where I borrowed (re-stated or paraphrased) portions from widely available wedding ceremony texts found online, but the rest is mine (other than the Good Will Hunting and Leonard Cohen quotes… duh).

5. if you’re interested, the text follows the ‘read more’ link, below:

….

Read More

Sometimes I even call her my girlfriend.