On Love.

"Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other."
-Audrey Niffenegger

Every once in awhile you meet someone and your life is changed forever.  And, if you are lucky (which in most cases, I am not) you fall in love.  Lucky me, I have a husband and a best friend in one.  The two of us, well, we have a unique story.  Ours is sprinkled with just a little bit of magic.

Here comes the surprise.  We have known each other since we were nine years old.  I know.  I know.  An extremely long time.  I was at a barbecue at the park when his dad walked him over and introduced us.  I gave him one look and decided he could join in on our game.  "Can you swim?", I asked.  He could.  And that was the beginning.  No, this isn't that kind of story.  Our parents had common friends.  And, so, we saw each other quite often.  Then I turned 13.  And, we hadn't seen each other in months.  He saw me, I saw him, he asked me for my number, and, the puppy love began.  First kiss.  First love.  First heartbreak.  Of course we couldn't really date.  But, we spent hours and hours on the phone.  Held hands when no one was looking.  And, if anyone asked, he was my boyfriend.  Well, anyone but my parents.  Cute, right?  Then we broke-up.  I was too young.  He wanted me to tell my dad (it was never going to happen).  So, we went our separate ways.  Enter the heartache.  Here is the thing. Somehow we knew we would eventually be together. I mean, come on, who makes a bet at the age of 12 that they would marry the girl they've known since the age of nine.  He did.  And he won.  When we got married I wrote him a $25 dollar check (he should have raised the stakes).  More years went by.  And, no matter what the circumstance, when we would see each other it was as though we were the only ones in the universe.  

When I turned 18 our paths crossed again.  This time things were different.  He even asked my father for permission to date me (I'm not one for tradition, but, my father is).  The rest well, as they say, is history.  As of now, I am not entirely sure where I stand on the notion of soul mates.  Yet, there is this inextricable pull inside of me that tells me otherwise.  Soul mates.  One person made for the other.  If the universe conspired for two people to find one another, well, then he and I would be the example.  We are a force to be reckoned with.  The husband and I have been together for eight years and married for almost three.  There are good days.  There are bad days.  Yet, all days are wonderful because he is in it.  And, above all else we are friends.  I balance him.  He balances me.  We balance each other.
Husband, you're my favorite.
xoxo

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close."

-Pablo Neruda