PERSONAL: GETTING SAD THAT I HAVEN'T FOUND MY FUTURE WIFE

Yes, there is so much good in my life, and yet sometimes, every moment aches.It's not that I am another year older… it's not that my life is passing me by without moving forward (my nephews are another year older, stunningly old -- kids now, no longer babies). I tell myself that lives aren't measured only by being married and having children… my life is rich, full of friends and family, a great job, -- fulfilling a life-long dream. I can look back and claim real achievements -- emotional growth, solidified relationships with family, goals met.But, somehow, when  new years comes  around, all I see is the fact that I am no longer the little boy thrilling to have toys… that I don't have anyone to make special breakfasts for, the way my mom made them for me.

 I feel it, and when the yearning occasionally overpowers me -- for an hour sometimes, and sometimes for a day, sometimes longer -- I am sickened with myself. There is so much good in my life, and yet all I see is the lack. There is so much good in my life, and yet, sometimes, every moment aches.

Believe it or not, I have a naturally happy disposition. And, sometimes, when I am taken over with longing for a life other than the one I have -- work, home, work, home, date, doesn't work out, work, home -- I wonder just what it is that men who don't have the incredible blessing of a sunny outlook go through. What do their days look like to them? How do they manage to get themselves out of bed -- to another day that just seems to remind you with every moment that, for whatever reason, you can't have what you think you were created for? Being married and being a father doesn't mean that your life suddenly becomes easy and perfect. If anything, it brings with it a set of enormous challenges that I can fathom only because I've watched so many of my friends struggle with them.

Marriage and especially fatherhood make you utterly beholden to others. A husband must always consider her wife and a father  must always, in some ways, give his life over to the needs of his family.Their schedules, their requirements, their moods… There's no more leisurely reading, no more running out at the drop of a hat, no more deciding to go somewhere on a whim. Sleeping through the night becomes a major accomplishment.

And yet, I think, it must all be so utterly worth it when your child opens up his eyes and sees you there in the morning.

I even try to convince myself that dating is fun -- after all, almost all the woman I've ever gone out with are good and kind, if not the woman I should marry -- and that my life has an excitement and variation my married friends somehow envy. After all, they sometimes tell me this.

And I see how hard marriage can sometimes be, and how one is forced to grow, accommodate and bite one's tongue. It's not all wine and roses.

And still I long for the days when I will roll my eyes because my wife, yet again, didn't change the toilet roll, Will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?

On those days, will I remember how I cried at night after another date with someone else who wasn't her, wondering how on earth I am ever going to find the woman with whom I'm going to build my life?

Will I remember the frustration of trying again? Will I even recognize her when she does come, or will I be so beaten down by the weight of all this, of all this longing and impatience and yearning and frustration, that I won't even recognize her when she finally appears?

What I wonder the most is how I can bear all this -- all this whining and kvetching and feeling ridiculously sorry for myself -- and still be a bearable person? People tell me that I am cheery and sunny and funny, There are times when I feel like it's enough. I've grown enough from these challenges. I'm ready to move on to the next set.And when I do, when I am annoyed with my wife  and exhausted from the kids, I just hope that I'll be able to remember what I felt now… and be grateful, so grateful, for what I'll have then.