The Husband

Note: This is a particularly mushy, gushy, girly, lovey post.
Now that you've been warned, read on...if you dare.


The husband is one of those great guys...the kind that would do anything for you, or make you smile by doing the most ridiculous things.
I've complained about him in the past, and I'm sure I'll do it in the future (how boring would a marriage be if there wasn't any fireworks?) but today was just one of those days that made me appreciate him for being him.
Let me go back in time about 15 years....I was eleven years old and in grade six. I went to a Catholic school in a nearby town and had to take the bus to school. One morning as we were picking up one of the kids I saw this boy walking down the road to the public school. He was dressed head to toe in neon pink (that was when fluorescent was very in), had a gold hoop earring and had this wave of blond hair in the front that made hime look like a surfer. Instantly I was in love.
My best friend (the Bahama Mama) went to the public school and I remember asking her about that boy when I got home from school that night. She told me his name was Chris and that he had just moved to town.
The district track and field meet was the next week and my school travelled to theirs with all the other schools to compete in the event. The day was almost over and I went into the school with my friend to get her stuff and he was walking down the hall towards us listening to a yellow walkman. My friend waved him over and said "Chris, this is my friend Ali" and he said "Hey" and walked by.
On the walk home I told my best friend that I was going to marry him someday.
The summer came and went, I saw him occasionally around town, but we never talked (he was 13, thus way cooler) but I still maintained my huge crush on him.
The next two years passed by in a blur, he was in high school and I was doing grade 7 and 8 of elementary.
In September of 1994 I started high school (grade 9) at the public school; Chris was in grade 11. Getting to see him everyday just made me think he was even cuter. I remember one day I was standing at my friend's locker and he was there waiting for his classroom to be unlocked and he was drinking a pop. He pulled the tab off the pop can and gave it to me. I don't even think he said anything - but I still have that pop tab in a box of stuff somewhere.
Anyways, he was friends with one of the guys that lived across the street from me and they were always outside playing football so I would make a point of always being in the front yard when they were around. That year, Chris got his drivers permit and it seemed like he would go by my house a hundred times a day, so of course I was outside even more. (He later confessed to me that they would drive down my street and turn around at the end to drive by the other way.)
We started "going out" on October 8th, 1994 when I was 14 and he was 16. I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16 so we kept it a secret until I was 15 or so. Then I found out my mom new, so I confessed it to her one night, and had a big talk with my dad and convinced them that I was ready to date.
We had the occasional break-up along the way, which would last for a month or so (and which I always caused) but it always came back to the fact that I knew he was the one for me. Even though I was so young, I knew that I didn't want to be with anyone else. (Sounds soooooo gay, I know.)
I graduated from college in 2000 and moved from North Bay, Ontario to Calgary, Alberta where he was and we got an apartment. We got married on June 30th, 2001.
Whew...now fast forward to present day.
I love that man more now than I ever have - and it makes me smile when I think back to me telling my friend 15 years ago that we were going to be married some day, and we are. What are the chances?
I was watching him today, suffering through the heat (he's always hot and I'm always cold) with his t-shirt and his sweats pulled up to his knees to cool off. Thinking I love his skinny, but very muscly legs, I love that he "gets me", even when I'm having some sort of incoherent meltdown, that he knows that when I need to work he needs to go into the bedroom to quietly watch the football game, that when I freak out at him for something silly he always manages to make me laugh and realize how dumb I'm being. That he always trusts me when I tell him that he should try cutting his hair a different way, or that those jeans would look really good on him, or that on his days off he'll get up early to drive me to work and pick me up later, and that he'll also bring me lunch on those days if I ask.
He'll go pick me up cream at 10 at night if I'm mad because there isn't any for my morning coffee (even though there is mild I could use), that he's so obsessive compulsive about keeping the car clean even though our house is a disaster, that he will always answer the door when we order takeout because I have some sort of phobia of doing it myself.
It's days like these when he goes out of his way to do things for me, or make me dinner, or help me hang up laundry, that make me love him even more. Plus, it doesn't hurt matters that he's not too hard on the eyes. Wink, wink.
I love you shy.