Rick,

This is your other self, the one who sits in your thoughts watching you walk through the world, seeing you smile while propping up a weak self image.

What you want you cannot deny.

What you fear doesn’t exist the way you think it does.

A generation from now, your grandchildren won’t know what you were like so any worries or frustrations you felt only show themselves in major decisions you made.

Do you want kids of your own? Why wait?

Drop the ballast, cut off the anchor, set sail into unknown waters, make her the one with whom you want to raise kids.

Love is nice and all but it’s not the same as you think it is.

Being kind doesn’t matter if you died childless when you could have sired offspring.

Take it from me, your wise self, billions of years in the making!