As much as it might come off like all these dad brogs, and just my general tone of writing in a brog is that my life isn’t that great and that I’m always pissed off and miserable or something, that’s obviously not the case.  Sure, I have my share of days in which I think things could be better, but ask yourselves if you really feel that much differently than I do.  Perhaps it’s the Korean in me always having high expectations for everything and no matter how much I tell myself to temper them, I don’t, and then I get predictably disappointed when things aren’t like, A+ rating at the end of the day.

But really, my life isn’t miserable, because I definitely know that things could be so very far worse, and I am fortunate to be in the position where I am at, to where the bills can remain paid and my kids are well taken care of.  Sure, I don’t feel like I have a tremendous margin of error, and it probably doesn’t take a lot to derail things into stress-filled catastrophe, but for what it’s worth, I’m hanging in there, and if there’s anything at all, the time I’m writing this, I’m not in one of those dark-filled headspaces, where there’s a tone or an edge to the words that I will be writing.

Really though, this is just a tiny story, that if not just wanting to share, for my own documentation, so I can remember this moment as one of those moments in life that I will treasure until the day I die, and as long as my brain can remember it, it would be like a core memory that I’ll always go back to whenever I feel like I need it.

I came home from work, another day in the office.  For the better part of the calendar year, work hasn’t necessarily been difficult, but it has been busy, to the point where it feels like nobody on my team can really breathe, due to the sheer volume of tickets and requests we get.  I don’t really feel like I’m getting to do my real job function, which is to be creative, and am more just punching in and punching out production type of requests, and considering I’ve witnessed my current company have a turnover rate that’s probably six-times higher than my previous employer, it’s a little unnerving.

But anyway, I come home from work, I park my car.  Instead of going in right away, I usually take an extra two minutes to go get the mail from the mailbox because I’m the only one who does it, and if it doesn’t happen now, then it won’t happen.  I can already hear my kids screaming from inside the house, and despite being off-the-clock with my job-job, I’m preparing myself to get back to work with the job that really matters.

I go to the mailbox and retrieve the envelopes in the box; undoubtedly moar bills, moar spam, moar junk.  No sooner than when I look up, I see #1 running towards me, with #2 not far behind.  Both are barefoot, and both have the biggest smiles of joy on their faces.  I scoop up #1 into my left arm, and seconds later, pick #2 up into my right, and begin carrying them back into the house. 

The au pair is not far later, apologetic for letting the kids slip out the way they did, but it’s fine; they’re slippery little toddlers and this is the kind of things that little kids do.  Really though, it’s more than fine, it’s a genuinely perfect moment in life, and if could bottle the feelings of their happiness, my reaction, and the sheer feeling of love, joy and happiness experienced over the next minute, mass produce it and sell it to the public, I would undoubtedly become the richest person in the world, because such raw positivity is so lacking in the world in general, and I know people would be willing to shell out a mint to experience what I did that afternoon.

Seriously, my words aren’t really sufficiently describing just how perfect of a moment it was.  Although the memory will always remain with me, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to see it again, and all I can hope is that it organically happens again in future days in which I come home from work, although I’m sure the au pair will be on higher alert to make sure the door is locked lest they sneak out again.

But it made my heart burst with happiness, to the point where curmudgeonly old brogger me felt the absolute need to share it with the dark and cynical interwebs, because I want to remember it forever.  If I were in Neverland, this would be my happy thought to get me to be able to fly.  It was like a Nintendo 64-kid amount of happiness.

It was a moment that absolves any amount of darkness, unhappiness and pessimism I may have felt over the last indeterminate amount of time.  And reinforces that absolutely no matter what, the love for my kids trumps everything there is, and there really is nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for them.