TGIF | Valentine’s Day
TGIF :: It’s Friday. Get fired up.
It’s VALENTINE’S DAY! Which means it’s also a few days shy of me & V’s wedding anniversary. So I’d like to take a minute to share my love for this amazing man.
After two very long relationships in my 20s, I basically figured I didn’t want to get married. Or seek out marriage, I guess. I wasn’t resigned to being alone or anything that dramatic. I just weighed out the reality of dealing with someone else vs dealing only with myself, and I didn’t see how inviting anyone into my world was going to be an improvement on how I wanted to live.
So, for a sizable amount of time, I was a happily single person that spent most of her energy traveling, figuring out her career goals, and dealing with mistakes made in the past. I focussed solely on myself, which is something you’re unable to do when you’re a girlfriend, wife, or mother, and I was able to become the kind of person I’d wanted to be but struggled to find for a decade. In fact, I was proud of whom I’d become. I wasn’t rich, thin, beautiful, or successful — all those traditionally western ideals of perfection — but I was living *clean*. Like, my behavior & conscience was absolutely shiny and pure: I lived honestly and with good intentions, I walked my talk, and I followed my instincts in my choices. And that felt like a huge accomplishment.
One day, I started thinking that I might make a good partner to someone — that I’d reached a point where I thought I knew myself well enough to be able to give as much as I took, value someone’s heart as much as my own, and consider the world from a perspective other than my point of view. Every now and again, I’d write down what moved me about people I respected. Qualities that were important to me in general. And qualities that were essential to me, specifically. Not a list, like you see in the movies or on Oprah. Just… intentions, maybe.
And then I met V, and I was a m a z e d. Truly, utterly, wholly amazed by this human being. He was a manifestation of — honest-to-god — every.single.thing I’d written down about my needs. Someone passionate but realistic. An insatiable, childlike curiosity. Respectful but challenging. Gives-you-the-shirt-off-his-back type of generosity; makes-me-a-better-person level of integrity. Mature, with hard, horrible life experiences under his belt. Happy, in his heart & in a way that emanates warmth & security. Shares my sense of humor, although sometimes I’m not sure if he’s laughing because something is funny, or because I’m laughing and he wants to share my joy — either way, I adore him for it. And, most of all, kindness. The type of compassionate, genuine kindness that can make you cry.
Oh, sure, he does stuff that drives me bananas. He can NEVER, ever figure out where to park in a parking lot, so we end up driving around forever as he weighs his options. He loves, LOVES onions but they make him smell dreadfully. He devours food insanely fast so we can’t ‘share’ anything fairly (I end up with 1/4 of it unless I want to feel like I’m a competitive eater). He can’t multitask, so if we’re on the highway together and he starts talking to me, the speedometer needle starts going down and inevitably people start honking. But these things are ridiculously minuscule and even as I write them out now, I’m smiling. The thing is: V is more than my husband, the person I married. He is my partner, in every sense of the word. In life & business. At home & on the road. In decisions & goal-setting. In love & friendship. And it’s absolutely wonderful.
