For My Husband

    I remember the day we were driving down the road past the lake. We were just friends at the time. We were talking about our dreams and what we thought our lives would look like. We had such similar dreams. It was like all of a sudden some sort of antenna went up from each of us and started angling towards each other! Were we meant to be more? We had known each other since grade one and it all seemed so unlikely!
   Then there was the day I was felt so disgruntled about everything. I didn't want to like you 'more' and yet I was starting to. I felt like we were such opposites (and yes we were and we still are!) and I felt like I knew too much about you ~ or something. There was a field of flowers that someone was growing and we had gone for a drive and I asked you to pick some. You said that would be stealing and I just didn't care. That was so out of character for me that you pulled over, hopped a barbed wire fence and started stealing! I got out of the car (in my PJ's) and just stood there. I must have looked distressed because someone pulled over and asked if I was okay. There we were, me in PJ's, you in the field stealing, and I just said, Yup I'm fine! They didn't really believe me so I had to be emphatic. I think it was a defining moment. I just didn't want to 'like you more.' I felt like it was not going to be an easy road. However I knew I would be FINE! A couple days later we were walking down the road by the farm at night and we had that moment where everything changed. I remember it so clearly and I am glad I do.
  Relationships are so interesting! They start off with such emotion ~ So many feelings! The world is on fire, full of color, and life, and vibrancy. Everything has a shimmer over it and you swear you could fly. We got married after a couple months together. It was quite the day! Sort of hazy. I remember my engagement ring being found. I had lost it three weeks before. That was a defining clear moment of the day. Other than that everything is a bit cloudy except, oh, I put your ring on the wrong hand! And our ring bearer would not walk down the aisle so his dad carried him and that was really special. Never mind, now many little moments are flooding back.
   I feel like so much of our time together has been me walking wounded. I am glad, thankful too, that it all started off lying on a road, staring at the stars, and we were good friends. I cared about you deeply it wasn't infatuation. I still do. I am glad we have kept going and have not given up.
  Today was an ordinary Saturday. You took a big load of garbage to the dump, you made the bunny cage bigger, you took our two oldest out for breakfast and took another one to the dump with you. You took the youngest outside and just gave him so much happiness. You were present and the day was such a happy one. When I think back to us driving past that lake and our dreams, when I think about us on the road under the stars, you stealing flowers, our wedding day and every day after that ~ it blows my mind.
  We have been on our own journeys and we have been on a journey together. We have given these children, these lives that we are responsible to nurture, to love, to cherish and through it all ~ we still have each other. You are all kinds of wonderful, you in your neon Canex hat and Australian hiking boots and that beard ~ all kinds of wonderful and I love you. xo