My anchor was my wife Angela. I knew I was too dependent on her, so when she brought up kids, I panicked and made a PowerPoint.
Why We Shouldn’t Have Children. Nine slides.
“Studies show that marital satisfaction drops significantly in 90% of couples after children. And since our marriage is a 10 out of 10,” I explained at our kitchen table, “mathematically, it can only go down.”
“You made a deck about not having kids?”
“With animations!”
She closed my laptop a little too hard.
“We’d be parents together.”
“But the data…”
“Fuck the data!”
Angela doesn’t swear.
We had kids. Three of them. And I was right.
We went from best friends to overwhelmed parents.
I found my first new anchor by accident. One night, I noticed my breathing had slowed while doing the dishes. The hot water. The circular motions. The visible results. And I settled. No need to clean better than anyone else, or faster than yesterday. Just clean.
Angela discovered hers at 5 AM when our youngest woke up. I handled it. She kept sitting with her eggs.
“I can’t move,” she said when I came back.
“This is the first time in two years I’ve finished breakfast while it’s still hot.”
No need to eat faster or do anything for anyone else. Just eggs.
We keep trying to find more. She puts the girls’ tiny clothes away while watching trash TV on her phone. I sit quietly in the car for three minutes after getting home.
“We’re still 10 out of 10,” she said one night. “Just different math now.”