13 years today....

Today is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years. I think..... I always have to look it up because I can never remember how many years or even what year we married. To me, it's as if I've spent my entire life with this man, my husband, and the number of years are really insignificant. And celebrating isn't so very important to me because every day I get to spend with him is a gift. I tried to find a picture of the two of us together but didn't find one.... How sad is that?! But I'm usually the one taking the picture....

Do you believe in soul mates? That one person that you are meant to spend your entire life with? Or do you believe there are many? I believe you can love many in your life time; in different ways. But I believe there's a difference from being in love and being in love.

My first marriage lasted 20 plus years. I'm not saying we were happily married for so many years, I'm just saying the marriage lasted that long.... Most of that time was spent with us growing in different directions. I do believe we were in love; maybe in love with the idea of being in love.... but it just wasn't the right kind of love to sustain the type of marriage I thought I had signed up for.

I first saw my sweetie while he was hanging off the side of our office building, pressure washing it. Head to toe in rain gear, including hard hat! When he wasn't in rain gear, I lusted after him in his Carhart pants and red sweatshirt! A mason from Seattle, he was sent to Juneau to work. The girls who worked in the building were all google eyed over these out -of-town men, but I managed to snag the cream of the crop. Long story short, I won his heart and he won mine and today we're more in love than we were 16 years ago.

When I met Mike, I couldn't believe my good fortune and hardly a day has gone by since we met that I haven't thanked God for bringing him into my life. It didn't have to turn out this way..... After all, statistics prove that you generally get in the same kind of relationship the second time around. Why was I singled out to have a better life? Why didn't I fall so easily back into the same old relationship? Did I change so much from one relationship to the other? I think perhaps, in a way, I did.....

I learned you have no control over others. No matter how much you beg, plead, or cry.... you can't change some one if they don't want to. I've since learned what unconditional love is. Loving your partner regardless.... Loving your children regardless.... Unconditional love is just that: "I will love you today, tomorrow, and always regardless of what you do or don't do." Don't get me wrong. I've had plenty of reasons to expect that my husband should change a behavior. But I've expressed my feelings and that's all I can do. I am willing to spend the rest of my life following him from room to room shutting cupboard doors, putting toilet paper rolls on, and turning off lights because I love him that much regardless.

Course what I love most about him is his deep love for me. Here's a man that would do any single thing at any cost to protect me, to keep me safe, to honor me. There isn't anything Mike wouldn't do for me. He protects me from all dangers. He would run into a burning building to save me. He would climb the highest mountain to retrieve me. He's kind and considerate; his touch makes me shiver. If ever there were two people more content to be with each other, I don't know. Together we are one; separated we are two floundering individuals who can't wait to be together again. I can't imagine my life without Mike. I can't imagine living a day without waking up next to him. He is my soul mate, my forever partner. We laugh. We talk. We still walk hand in hand and cuddle every night before falling asleep. He still opens doors for me. We have the same dreams and the same goals. We are each other's strength and we support each other's decisions whether we like it or not. He treats me with kindness, with respect, with a tenderness that melts my heart. I can stare at him with adoration and my heart will still melt by the sight of him; by his every movement. That is true love.

But life works in mysterious ways. I could have gotten divorced years earlier and probably been remarried by the time Mike came to town and was hanging off the side of the building. In that case, he would never have entered my life. But I honestly believe it was God's intent to keep me in marriage #1 for so many years before giving me the courage to get out, just when the time was right to welcome Mike into my life. When the time was right.... Yes, God works in mysterious ways.

So happy anniversary, sweetie. You are my forever love.