Trying not to be trite.

For the past week and a half Tarzan and I have been living kid-free, and I must admit it has been nice. I have had the chance to be reminded of why we ended up together in the first place. With two such strong personalities at times we are at each other’s throats but thankfully we are both too bull-headed to just walk away from a struggle. I remember when we met 11 years ago, we were both so young and had our eyes focused on 2 very different futures.

My entire life had been spent trying to find, make, or mold each man I dated into ‘the one’. I had been heart-broken and I was ready to turn over a new leaf. I was young for heaven sake so now it was time to be both young AND dumb. I had decided that I was done with long-term relationships and it was time to be foot loose and fancy free. Tarzan has always been a hit with the ladies, and I don’t mean a ‘ladies man’, he always knows just what to say to a woman to get in her good graces. He was (and for the record still is) suave, funny, handsome, smart and had an infectious laugh. I dreamed of being married and he had decided that marriage was not for him. We were both in college and we had friends in common but we had never spent a great deal of time together. I had done poorly in school and had to enroll in summer school to try and catch up and improve my GPA. I was pissed, I didn’t want to go to summer school, and no one I knew was going and I would have no vehicle (thanks to that .75 GPA). My mom drove me to school, got me settled in and I headed to the cafeteria for supper. As I scanned my card and turned to walk inside, there he was. I couldn’t believe it; maybe this summer wasn’t going to be all bad. My life quickly turned into a John Hughes movie and I could hear the lovesick soundtrack playing over my rapid heartbeat. That was it, in one summer I found my best friend and my partner for life.

To use the phrase ‘love of my life’ would be trite. He’s the sunshine in my day, the skip in my step, the song in my heart, and the daydream in my head. I always imagined love to be this overwhelming emotion that would block out so much of the world, essentially making me blind to things. Not ours. When things are bad; dry sobbing, gut wrenching, life changing hard…he’s the relief. When I’ve made and ass out of myself, hurt people’s feelings, or not been the person I want to be he’s there. When life is sunshine, roses, and laughs he’s there too. We may no longer be in the stage where you struggle with chapped lips, friends are forming search parties, and coming up for air can be painful, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. At some point real life has to be happen, you have to get jobs and be grown-ups. Things are no longer about always being together, now it’s about always being there FOR each other. As I’ve watched my grandparents and parents growing older together, I’ve have realized that while things will never be easy and each ‘season’ of our relationship will have its struggle, it’s nothing we can’t handle.

So every morning when I wake up I will touch his arm and silently whisper, “I choose you” and I will use my second breath to thank God for allowing Tarzan to swing into my life.