This should not come as a surprise to me. It was explained to me cleary and deliberatelly since Christy and I started dating. There were certain characteristics that ran through her family that give them the jedi-like power of being able to take an emotion out of their bodies, hold it in their hands, carefully examine it, and determine if it is worthwhile to keep. Maybe it has just taken eight years to really sink in, but I think I finally get it. My wife is a robot. I do need to make clear that I make this assertion in the most loving way possible. I am in no way critical of these traits. I actually admire them. However, the likelihood of these mechanical qualities being passed along to my children is quite high. In fact I see these things manifest themselves in my second born daughter, Ava. Keep in mind that she is still four years old and is subject to the loss of control of her emotions. She can cry hot tears of agony just like any small child. The difference with Ava is that she has an impenetrable fortress of solitude that not even the cleverest of parenting techniques can breach. You can see it in her face that if she is doing something that she knows is against the rules and has decided that her emotions do not factor into the equation, there is nothing that can be done. She has already won.
This rings true with me specifically. I think she has already figured out that she can push my buttons and she enjoys it very much. In fact, I think that I can formulate a theory as to the origin of this particular line of androids. There are aliens on a faraway planet who wish to study the emotional aspects of the human experience and have developed a large number of extrememly realistic robots to live among us to study general emotional states. The aliens have found, I think, that I am a specimen that is easily thrown off his emotional center. I understand that this sounds like a terrible thing to experience but I would gladly take this over being abducted and ... uh... you know.....probed.
I am, of course, speaking in jest (Who talks like that anymore?). I know for a fact that these members of my family are not robots. These people are who they are and I love them for it.
Has anyone ever told you that when you marry a woman, you are essentially marrying her mother, because that is what she will be like in 20 years? I am going to go ahead call bullshitte on that in my case. Christy is not becominh more like her Mom she is becoming more like her Dad. This is okay. Neither her mother nor her father are terrible people. I love and care about them both very much, but this fact will take some getting used to.
I apologize for the rambing nature of this post but it was something I felt compelled to share. I hope to continue posting often and will even include some multi-media from my personal collection.... Okay, that sounded really gross. But be prepared for some surprises along the way.
-JB
