Valentine's Day

I won’t be home for Valentine’s Day.  I won’t be home with the woman with whom I’m spending my life. I even have to post this a day early because I won’t be near a computer until Tuesday. But that’s okay.

Our journey together isn’t about cards and flowers and chocolates. We’ve been together going on 25 years including courtship.  And in that time, we’ve shared a few things.

We bought our first house together and moved cross-country and bought our second house, which we’ve been fixing up ever since.

We’ve raised two daughters, which is of course shorthand for innumerable joys and jobs and moments of triumph and terror.  We shared nights up with sick babies, and trips to the emergency room and first steps and last bottles and cute quotes and less cute messes.

We’ve worried over jobs and bills and whether to (insert life decision). We’ve driven around most of the perimeter of the country and flown back and forth too many times to count.

We’ve shared meals and a bed and chores and births and deaths and time together and times apart.

There was the time we got caught in a downpour on a dark highway with no lane markers and broken windshield wipers.  And the time we got so immersed in our conversation, we drove over thirty miles in precisely the wrong direction.  But we always made it home.

We’ve shared and continue to share a life. And I can’t wait to see what’s next. So we don’t need to be together on this day for the day to be special. They’re all special.

I love my wife and she loves me. But perhaps more important, we truly like each other. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mary!

P.S.: Yes, I did buy her a bouquet of flowers - what, am I stupid?