I forgot to love you

May 2019

It was somewhere between nappies and training wheels, sleepless nights and early soccer games. You went from being my only one, my priority, my first thought, to being second in line, third down the chain and gradually over time, you set up shop at the bottom. It was never my intention; it wasn’t a conscious decision and if I am honest, I cannot even recall the round-about time, let alone the exact day the shift happened. But, over the past years, somewhere in the rush of life, I forgot to love you.

I forgot to love you and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dealt with the fights at the dinner table instead of listening to how your day was. I’m sorry I slept in the kids’ bed night after night, instead of coming back to you so we could wake up next to each other. I’m sorry our regular movies nights got traded out for hour long baby back patting sessions. I’m sorry.

Overtime I forgot to relish in the little things. The things I loved about us when we first met, became the things that dropped off when the dynamics of our life changed. Sunday afternoon couch snuggles, laughing through delirium at bedtime and weeklong puzzling sprawled all over the kitchen table all banished to make way for lounge forts, tag team baby nursing and avoiding LEGO landmines. While our life together now is magic, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, it has meant that at times, I have forgotten to love you.

I forget to love you until you shine your heavenly dimples at me and I get a delicious memory of who we used to be. I forget to love you, but then you grab me to dance in the kitchen and it reminds me of where we came from. I forget to love you but am jolted back with butterflies of giddiness when you sneak in a sweet hand hold on an autumn walk. You do all the right things to remind me you are still there, loving me consciously and purposely, even though often I forget to love you back. You’ve continued to stand up, man up and wait for me to find my way back to you. You see me, knee deep in sharing my time, my sleep and my body with our children and you support me any way you can. Somehow, while you've dropped to the bottom of my list, I have remained at the top of yours. You’ve never forgotten to love me, and for that, I am grateful.

Please know, that I do love you, deeply and dearly, without reservation or hesitation. My love for you has taken a new form, but never once has it faltered. Please be patient with me, I know it’s been years. Years of you sharing me with our family, years of you being the last to speak, years of you at times not being considered in our plans. But one day in the not too distant future, it will be back to just you and me. And I have no doubt that we will miss the interruptions, the early nights and the child cockblocks. Until then, please forgive me for sometimes forgetting to love you.

J x