Hubs & I 3 Years Later

Three years ago today, Hubs and I met.

And I can assure you I don't think my life was complete without a big, tall, blonde, blue eyed man to buy me fattening food and tell me I'm pretty.

(Seriously.)

I've learned so much about marriage and myself in these last three years.

I've learned what it's like to have someone on your side and by your side, no matter what happens. I've learned that not everyone just gives up when things get hard, and that I can lean and lean and lean and he'll never let me fall. And what it feels like to have a man that is only yours. That is manogomous.

I've learned that I am a huge pain in the butt, but he can, apparantly, live with that. That OCCASIONALLY I have to admit that I'm wrong, and that I will often irritate him to no end, but he won't hold a grudge.

(I mean, not for very long, anyway.)

Three years ago today, I met a man and fell head over heels in love. And 6 months later he would ask me to take a leap of faith with him, even though I had a bad track record and more baggage than a Louis Vuitton sample sale. He asked me to take a chance on a life together. And I said "Yes."

Three years ago I met a man who still tells me today that I can talk to him about everything. He tells me that all the time. And he means it. And I talk to him. A lot. And he genuinely appears to enjoy it. And he soaks in what I say. And gives me feedback.

And he says this to me:

"You can always come to me. I'm always going to be here. I'm always going to listen."

I didn't always have that.

I didn't always have that, I didn't always have the closeness, the comfort, the assurance someone is always going to be ON my side and BY my side, through all the crazy and the neuroses and the crackhead insomnia and the mismatched baggage that I seem to accumulate wherever I go like I'm a professional flea market shopper with an unlimited budget.

I had a tumultuous first marriage that ended with an anticlimactic divorce and the overwhelming sense that THIS WASN'T HOW THINGS WERE SUPPOSED TO TURN OUT, DAMNIT, and the sinking sinking always sinking drowning feeling that woke me up in the middle of the night gasping for air and wondering where the hell I'd go from here.

But I couldn't dwell, not then, because it hurt too much and I couldn't make sense of anything. I couldn't catch my breath and I couldn't stop and wonder and second-guess because if I did I might've just stayed in bed and my kids would have been forced to eat dry cereal day in and day out.

I didn't, because I wanted more than that, and I was DETERMINED to make lemonade with this crap pile of lemons I'd been given instead of just rubbing them over my raw skin.

And thank God I did, because it's the best thing I've ever done. It propelled me to where I was on August 2, 2007. And brought us together:

And we do this a lot:

And he makes me really happy:

Time heals all wounds. I'm living proof.


Happy Anniversary, hubs. I love you more than chocolate.

I can't wait for the next three years. And the three after that...and three more after those...