4 years & 40 weeks

I love you so much I can’t stand it. I even love it when you look at me like “Damn, you love me so much I can’t stand it.” xo

On our anniversary I write MQD a list of things I love about him. Well, I usually do.

I can picture the look on MQD’s face and the face he will make this year. He will read my post and say “I don’t get a list this year? Four years and you are out of things to say?”

Depending upon my state of mind I might laugh and say “Nope, I only love 1,018 things about you. That’s it. 365 things for the first first two years and 288 things last year. I shorted you 77 things last year.” Or maybe I will get all misty eyed and say “Are you kidding? Did you even read what I wrote?” and he will hug me in the kitchen and do that thing where he sways his hips but doesn’t move his feet with his arms around my waist. I believe he thinks it is dancing.

On October 27, 2008 I went on my very last first date. A few days after that we went to a Halloween party and we danced (with feet moving, slow dancing in the kitchen is its own private art form.) Four years ago.

On our first anniversary I wrote him a list. 365 things I love about him. It made him cry. I was moved because he didn’t do things like that, cry. On our second anniversary I did it again. Again, he cried. The following year my list was 77 items short because I was short on time and we were moving and I was so pregnant I just couldn’t make myself stay up late to finish it the night before. He forgave me. I was carrying his child after all.

This year I had ample time to get my list started early. Every time I have sat down to write it I have come up short. In front of the keyboard weeping I can’t write a single line. When you write Reason # 1 – This Life how do you write a Reason #2.

Michael,

Our first year together you gave me Hope.

Our second year together you gave me Love.

Our third year together you gave me a Family.

In our fourth year together you have given me This Life.

Today is the start of our fourth year. Our baby, our Lucy, started walking this week. And I was not at work. I was at home. I saw her first step. And her second. And her third. She sleeps in my lap for her naps. Because I have nothing but Time.

My dreams are coming true. You did this. I was so afraid to speak them, to admit that my wildest dreams were at home with my family. But I did. And you made them come true. A clever list about how you make perfect pancakes and you look adorable in a bow tie is not enough to demonstrate my love for you. Not this year.

Our relationship has shared much of the last year with Lucy. Having a baby can definitely put romance in the backseat (and not in a romantic, teenage car sex way.) It is only fitting that our anniversary is shared with Lucy, too.

A pregnancy is 40 weeks long. Today Lucy has been on the outside for 40 weeks and 1 day. She has officially been on the outside longer than she was on the inside. And I didn’t miss a minute of it. Because of you.

Four years ago we stepped inside my front door and you followed me. I spun around to kiss you and I have been dizzy ever since. You took my hand and we walked down the aisle after we were married to Tommy Roe’s Dizzy. I was dizzy that day, too.

Today. Four years after our first date and 40 weeks and 1 day after Lucy was born I am still dizzy. I think it’s Love. But I am open to the possibility that I might just be really tired. I’ll just have to check and see if I am still dizzy next year.

I love you. More every day. Hope. Love. A Family. The Life I’ve always dreamed of. I can’t imagine what you’ve got up your sleeve for year number five. Good thing you’ve got a year to think about it. Now come on over here. I’ve got a slow dance in the kitchen with your name on it.

Yours,

Kel