"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action;
actions form habits; habits decide character;
and character fixes our destiny."
[Tyron Edwards]

On the 12th of February, 2003 I wrote that I needed to make 3 miracles in my life. Nowadays, it seems I have so many miracles in my life I can scarcely find the time to tell people about it, much less sit and write. Of the three I set forth as my agenda, I've been saying "two and a half outta three ain't bad". That last half seems an inevitability as well - not the dreaded kind, but the kind one to which one looks forward.

"Inevitability" is a strange bird too, as I've come to learn. Something I never suspected as inevitable was, and something I always figured was, isn't. These past few months have been eye-opening for me, in a wonderful kind of way. If you drop by hoping to occassionally take in one of my amusing rants as I rattle off a littany of all that is wrong with... whatever... well then I'm sorry to disappoint, but that's not what you'll find today. Actually, that's a lie. I'm not at all sad to disappoint if that's the benchmark.

Falling in love isn't the sort of thing I ever saw as an inevitability, and certainly not with someone whom my history and attitude would have clearly gone against. Nonetheless, looking back, I suppose I never ruled it out. My expressions of disbelief were not that of someone unwilling, but of someone unsuspecting. I just always thought it didn't fit. I figured it wasn't "in me". But recently, looking back on it, in answering a question from my lover as to where my feelings lay, I could not help but recognize and accept the inevitability of it.

Her name is Olivia. She loves cheerios and raisins and chicken and cheese and pasta, but there's a lot of other food she's not as fond of and she's not yet great with a spoon. Forks are way out. She pronounces my name "Pah", and even when she says it I'm not always entirely sure she's referring to me. She usually walks, crawls when going up and down stairs, and gets quite clumsy at about 7pm each night. She will nonetheless determinedly stagger around trying to continue playing and make the most of her day until she's told it's bedtime.

I was about to type "how I ever thought I couldn't come to love children..." but I stopped myself. Because that's not the point and never really was. It's not really about love or hate, because in spite of however I expressed it in the past, it was never something about which I felt passionately. Rather, I was ignorant and became enlightened. Liza-Ann, the wonderful woman with whom I now share as much of my life as I'm able, has helped me to uncover this truth. It was, is, and always will be, about fear. But it's about a fear that everyone feels, even parents - especially parents. It's about wanting to protect and nuture but not confine. It's about wanting to reasonably control yet not dominate or frighten. It's about caution. It's about the confusion that comes from being on the one hand incredibly frustrated that you can't make a 17-month old understand turning off the DVD player while you're in the middle of watching something is a bad idea, while on the other hand being unable to keep from laughing at the exaggerated frown she emotes when you try.

And as with everything else in life, being afraid is ok, so long as you do not allow that fear to paralyze you, but to instead propel you.

It's a lesson I started to learn through my exposure to my nephew Benjamin, which is now much more congealed through my exposure to Oliva, and which I fully expect - and hope - to joyously spend the rest of my life learning.

No, I'm not suddenly all comfortable around kids. But I know why not, and I'm ok with that.

The other lesson in inevitiability was a little different. Something I always thought "just happens", I've come to discover doesn't. It's the simplest thing, really: "growing up". All my life I've thought of "growing up" as a stage of development, an inevitable one, just like growing older. The idea that some day I'd be a responsible adult with a girlfriend or wife, possibly children, a regular job and other responsibilities... this idea always felt in my mind like something that somehow "just happens". It was as if I expected to go to sleep some night and wake up the next day to find myself there, having "arrived".

But these things don't "just happen". These things are choices we make. They are big choices, important choices. They are the choice to go ahead and embark on a relationship with a woman who has a child, even though you're not sure how you feel about children. They are the choice to take a job and still pursue part-time courses at the same time even though you know you'd be a busy as a dog with two dicks. They are the choices to put as much as possible into a relationship in order to make something real and sustaining instead of holding back for fear of someday being hurt.

We don't "become" adults; we choose to be.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to drop over to Liza-Ann's. I'm going to get myself a glass of milk, and make myself some peanut butter sandwiches. We're going to make small talk and watch some DVD while I snack, as we do often do.

And there, in that uncomplicated, unpolished, mundane routine... I experience some of the riches moments I have ever known.

Two-and-a-half outta three ain't bad.

For once, I really do have nothing to complain about. (And about that, I'm not complaining.)