{"id":34772,"date":"2021-08-07T04:53:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-07T09:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34772"},"modified":"2021-08-07T04:53:18","modified_gmt":"2021-08-07T09:53:18","slug":"i-need-responsibility-for-slaying-dragons-to-protect-those-i-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34772","title":{"rendered":"I need responsibility for slaying dragons to protect those I love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was just an odd computer glitch. Something with a reasonable explanation. It has to be. But I\u2019ve sat here for the last hour or so looking at a photo I didn\u2019t intend to find tonight. And it pushed some unexpected emotional buttons.<\/p>\n

I wanted to find a photo on my MacBook from about 20 years ago, so I typed in a file-name search. Instead of things related to what I was looking for, the system turned up five photos that were completely unrelated to that. At the top of the list was a photo from seven years ago. I didn\u2019t open it.<\/p>\n

Then I worded the search an entirely different way. It gave me a handful of files again. At the top was the same photo which had been at the top of the search before. I felt mesmerized by the weirdness of what I was seeing, so I opened the file, even though I knew what it would be.<\/p>\n

There were two faces. One was my face. The other face was that of a beautiful woman who I used to know.<\/p>\n

The photo was a composite the woman made seven years ago. We had been talking about what our children would look like. She made something that was a closeup of her face and mine to help her envision how our genes would combine.<\/p>\n

She thought we would have beautiful children. I thought so, too.<\/p>\n

As I looked at this photo of our smiling faces, I thought again about how much I had wanted to end up married to her — how much I had expected that. And I found myself thinking about why<\/em> I had wanted to marry her. But I saw it from a slightly different point of view than I’d seen it before.<\/p>\n

I’d always seen it primarily as being about the love and connection that I felt between the two of us. I still saw it that way, but I saw another layer on top of that. I had wanted to marry her — and to build a family with her — to give me real purpose in life. I wanted to be responsible for her.<\/p>\n

I wanted someone to need me. To count on me.<\/p>\n

All of this was strongly influenced by something that happened Thursday night as I slept. I vaguely remember being awake for a few minutes during the night, tapping out some thoughts that came to me in my sleep. I found the words on the Notes app of my iPhone Friday morning. And as I looked at this photo tonight, I suddenly applied my nocturnal thoughts to this woman.<\/p>\n

“Without responsibility, what\u2019s the point of life for a man?” <\/em>I had written. “If you\u2019re not taking care of someone who you love, you feel useless.\u00a0Having responsibilities gives a man purpose \u2014 and I lack purpose now. I need purpose so badly. I need a family who rely on me to slay the dragons of their world, not because they can’t fight their own battles, but because they allow me to show them how much I love them.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t know what prompted that in my sleep. Maybe it was connected to a dream. Maybe it was just some random thought as I was in the twilight state between waking and sleep. I’ll never know.<\/p>\n

But as I looked at the photo from seven years ago — and thought about what I had written last night about purpose — I fully understood that additional layer of why I’d wanted to marry this woman.<\/p>\n

She didn’t need<\/em> me to slay her dragons. She’s smart enough and competent enough to kill any dragons in her way. But that increased my desire to take care of her and to build a family with her. I wouldn’t be doing it because she was weak or incapable. I would be slaying dragons for all of us — solving problems for us — simply because I wanted to express love in a tangible way.<\/p>\n

The times in my life when I’ve had the most success have tended to be when I was doing things for someone else. Today, outside the simple needs of my cats and my dog, nobody really needs me. I lack purpose.<\/p>\n

I have a great need to do work for someone who I love. A wife, a family. I have a need to be able to make something good and take it to a woman and say, \u201cI made this because of you. You inspired me to be my best.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And that’s a big part of why I wanted to marry her. I was excited to have purpose again. I wanted to slay dragons and build a future for a family who counted on me to be their champion.<\/p>\n

Love and connection are important. I do want those things. But I also want someone to rely on me. I want the responsibilities — and burdens — of showing a wife and children that I love them and that I’ll take care of them.<\/p>\n

That’s a purpose worth living for. And it’s a purpose worth loving for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was just an odd computer glitch. Something with a reasonable explanation. It has to be. But I\u2019ve sat here for the last hour or so looking at a photo I didn\u2019t intend to find tonight. And it pushed some unexpected emotional buttons. I wanted to find a photo on my MacBook from about 20 Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-92Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34772"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34788,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34772\/revisions\/34788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}