The Sigh of Contentment - Part 2

My mother isn't the only place in which I've gone to, to achieve that sigh of contentment.  No, it's been a long time since I've hung something up on Mom's Fridge.  I guess that feeling was really a mix of achievement and acceptance.  It was a great feeling though.  Over the years, since I've left home, I've been trying to replace that feeling.  To a certain degree I have, at times, felt it at work.  Again, there was the feeling of achievement.  You know that feeling.

You've worked really hard, devoted your time to a project, and when your boss and coworkers praise you for your efforts, you feel energized.  It's not that feeling of completeness, but more that you're life is on track.  It feels pretty good.  It's not like the feeling of contentment that Mom gave you though.  That was achievement coupled with maternal love and acceptance.  That was something.  Where do you go to find that?

I don't know where you can go.  I found it in Colorado and it's followed me ever since.  No, it isn't the benefits of being an Air Force Academy graduate.  There's that sense of achievement again, but there's no love in that (maternal or otherwise).  I found it when I met and married my wife.

In the beginning we had lots of passion.  That, like in all relationships, has faded to a degree, but it has been replaced with something better, something that grows with each year.  It's the true feeling of contentment. 

I can't tell you where it comes from or why it's there.  I can only tell you when I feel it.  I feel it when I am in a long, melting embrace with my wife.  It's not one of those sexual embraces; instead it's the kind where you don't want to let go, because you don't want the feeling to end.  When I hold my wife, all is right with the world.  The stress and struggle of work fades from the back of my mind.  The fatigue from long days and late nights disappears.  The worries about our future are forgotten.  The only thing left is that peaceful easy feeling, that sigh of contenment that alerts you to the fact that everything is going to be alright. 

She doesn't have to tell you that she loves you.  She doesn't have to praise you for your latest endeavors.  She just has to return the hug and your life is now complete.  That's the sigh of contentment.  That's what I live for.  That's what I look forward to after months deployed overseas or after hours of working in the office each day. 

They say that you marry your mom.  Maybe in a way that's true.  Only my mom and my wife have been able to give me the feeling of the sigh of contentment.  They may have done it in different ways for different reasons, but that doens't change the importance or how nice it feels.   Sigh.....