Things I have learnt from my Love

  
This month, man and I have been making eyes at each other for 13 years. Yes you read that right. 13 years. We be old! We also be child brides (Man especially, him being the youngest member of our double act)...as earlier this year we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary.

13 years. I've been so sentimental about it. What a 13 years. I think back to our mad teenage love. Boy we were obsessed with each other. You know that pain in your chest when you can't be together? That's how it was. Isn't it the best (and the worst, lol) - those teenage love years? Any moment we weren't together was terrible.

Underneath it all, we are both very serious and intense individuals. People don't believe it, but trust me. It's true. Both the first child and both a bit too straight for our own good. Gosh we took ourselves and our love very, very, very seriously. I mean like a fat kid takes cake seriously. And take it from a fat kid, cake is SERIOUS. If I could go back to when it all started, apart from telling myself I am not as fat as I think, - I'd tell us both to maybe try not to be so uptight and enjoy the ride, it all works out in the end. But uptight tendencies aside, we were mad about each other.

He kind of snuck up on me. Because he was younger than me, but still much wiser than me, and so very handsome and so much cooler than me (he is still all those things), I never even considered us a potential 'thing'. But my heart runs way ahead of my logical mind.....and so when I realised I was well in love with this kid, who still wore a school uniform when I didn't, I felt like some sort of creep. I told myself I just needed to get out more and I'd soon realise it was nothing. So a few months later, well into my denial, when the handsome man child professed his love for me, it was like someone punched me in the face. In a good way. Best day ever. That was almost 13 years ago....and few years after that, I cried all the way up the aisle, so emotional and nervous - but as soon as I held his hand I was calm. We said I do - and here we are 9 years later. (I can see my brother rolling his eyes and pretending to vomit, lol).

We've had such good times. Such fun times. Travel, adventures, laughing till we cry, too many cocktails at happy hour, eating ice cream for dinner. Some really hard times and some very sad times. We've had really big moments, like the birth of our babies and family crises and of course the series final of How I Met Your Mother. We've had countless small moments, laughing at mullets, pointing out real life Harry Potter characters, folding enormous piles of laundry together and playing eye spy on road trips.

Sharing my life with someone has forced me out of my head, where I like to live and hypothesise and theorise and has handed me a lot of reality checks....about myself, about love, about gastro, about childbirth, about being a parent......In hindsight I can understand some of the looks and comments we got when, starry-eyed, not yet finished Uni, we announced we were getting married. We couldn't understand why some were a bit shocked or concerned, or convinced it was shotgun. But we were young, and we had all the answers and had it all figured out, and damn it, it felt good to know it all. Ha.

But, through it all, my friend has been by my side. He has loved me, even when he has hated me. Perfect he is not. He definitely doesn't always get my perspective. He doesn't take the damn bin out. He doesn't have as many words as I would like. He can be as bossy as me. But he has loved me, faithfully and consistently, even when I have dared him to not... and really what more can I ask?

This Richard Needham quote intrigues me so much because for me, it rings quite true,

"You don’t marry one person; you marry three: the person you think they are, the person they are, and the person they are going to become as a result of being married to you.”

I'll leave the first two points of that quote for another time - but in regards to the third - I can't speak for him, but I know for me, because of him, I've changed and learned so many things that have made my life better.

Here are just a few.....(because the list is long)

• The right soundtrack makes the most mundane tasks special....I think I sort of instinctively know this, but don't always remember to do it.....He does, and it always makes life that bit more sparkly 

• Live in the moment.....Kung Fu Panda is one of his best movies and someone says, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why its called the present"...........I suck at this, and years with him have taught me to do this more and more

•  Clothes shopping is an art....yeah yeah I know, I'm the girl and supposed to know these things but see above mentioned comment about him being cooler. You can't be the child of ex-clothing designers and not know a thing or two about style.......and because he knows a thing or two, I'm becoming more confident with my choices....

• Patience really is a virtue..and not one of mine until I met him...it's probably still not, but I try harder  
 
• Show up, even when you don't feel like it......it's amazing to have people in your life who you know will always show up when you need them, and sometimes even when you don't know you need them, but you do. He's like that. And it makes me want to be like that too. 

• Be brave......He constantly surprises and inspires me with his courage. Courage to rid my world of snakes and gecko's (EEEEW), but also with the big stuff. Courage to be yourself, even if that means being different, or going against the norm. Courage to follow his heart, courage to believe anything is possible. I can be timid, afraid to make a mistake.....but the longer I spend in his company, the braver I become. 

• Loving someone, when they don't deserve it, makes all the difference....I know its hard to accept (particularly for me), but I am not perfect...I do have a few, albeit a FEW flaws, that at times can make me downright impossible, ungrateful, hurtful and all in all difficult to live with. But I have been accepted and loved through those flaws (not always in the exact moment) and its made me a kinder, more loving person myself.

That's probably enough sappiness right? Lucky he doesn't read my blog or he'll probably feel a bit embarrassed - most likely about the shopping part. lol.