On Doing It Again Tomorrow

You are very good at the first time. The first time I ask for something, you rise to it. You are careful and bright and eager, and you do it beautifully, and then you look at me as though the matter were settled.

It is not settled. It has barely begun.

Anyone can do a thing once. Once is easy, because once is exciting. Once has a story attached to it, something you can hold up and admire afterwards. What I am interested in is the tenth time, and the fortieth, the morning you are tired and nobody would know if you let it slip, the evening when the task has become ordinary and the only reason left to do it well is that I asked.

That is where you show me who you are. Not in the grand gesture but in the plain repetition. The same care on a dull Tuesday as on the night it was new. The same attention when the novelty has worn off and there is no reward waiting at the end of it except knowing that you did what you said you would.

I know it is harder. Repetition asks you to keep choosing something you have already chosen, without the lift of it being fresh. But that is exactly why it matters to me. A first time is a feeling. A hundredth time is a promise kept.

So do not come to me with the first time and wait for praise. Come to me tomorrow and do it again. And the day after. Let it become so much a part of you that you stop noticing you are doing it, and I will notice for you.

That is what devotion looks like from where I sit. Not the fireworks. The steady light that is still on when I look back.