I am in a field, a large field. I am laying in the grass, it is soft. It contains no bugs, no chiggers, no burrs and no dog poop. There is a breeze, a nice one to offset the amazing sunshine. There is not a cloud to be seen. It's 75 degrees, it's as if God set his thermostat to greatness, just for me.
My head in is my wife's lap and she is running her fingers through my hair. We are not talking, just enjoying the day. Occasionally she will make a comment on something that she has read. I'll agree with her because right now I am very freaking agreeable. To anything. My arms are spread wide as I enjoy this.
My daughter is feeding me grapes and cheese cubes while I lay on my wife's lap. I did not ask her to do this and I don't know if she ever saw this being done. She just started doing it. She asked me if I wanted a grape. Hell yea I want grapes. So now she is feeding grapes while I talk to my wife and look at our pristine sky.
My son is flying a kite. He has it well under control. He did not drop it, he did not break it. We even got it up on the first try. My other son, the baby is taking Cheese-its out of a bag and then putting them back in. He has been doing this for 15 minutes. When he gets bored, he runs around the field then comes back to the Cheese-its.
It is here, at this Kite Festival, that I realize that I have attained success. That my work as a stay at home dad has been validated. That if there were awards for awesomeness and for level of success, the president would be pinning this on me. Eating hand fed grapes on my wife's lap, there can be no other criteria for success.
This means of course that every decision that I have ever made in my life is hereby validated. With each grape dropped like manna from heaven into my mouth reassures me that my path, while unusual at times, was the correct one.
The day 6 years ago when I decided to give up my career, leave behind money and importance, is validated.
The day we moved to a different city in a different state, was the right call.
Should we have another child? Today that answer is an unequivocal yes.
Should I have gone to Mexico when I was 20 and then paid a guy five bucks to shock me with a car battery in some weirdo macho show of awesome to impress my wife? Apparently that was the right move because EVERY DECISION I have ever made has led me here, to the Mount Everest of Success.
Should I have let Little Hoss take a leak in the woods when she was 2? Good call. Should I have given my son the mallet and told him to hit something only to realize to late that it was my car? Apparently. Should I have toughed out my first kidney stone so as not to panic my wife? God damn genius.
When looked at through this lens of grapes, cheese and head rubs on a sunny day, every bad decision doesn't seem bad at all. It seems to reveal that even unknown to myself, I'm pretty fucking smart. If my bad decisions led me here, imagine where I would be if I really put some thought into what I do.
Scratch that, I know exactly where I would be. I would be right here sucking on those grapes.
So many apparently bad decisions, all suddenly all wiped out. Do I need to get that looked at? Apparently not. You shouldn't take that road, it's to muddy. Think again. One more drink young college Hoss. Yes, I believe I will. I am living the life of what is written about since the Greeks. I am eating grapes. And cheese. On my wife's lap.
Of course, there is only one direction to go from here. Its a road that is pitted with babies that won't go to sleep, with children that are learning to get a smart mouth, with cars that won't start and with pipes that burst in the middle of winter. I know this.
But I also know that the Kite Festival comes back next year, in the same place, in that same field. I have already put my grapes on lay away.
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