HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my other half...
I'm not going to paint him a hero...
He'd hate it if I did so,
and to be honest, even though we may be heroic to someone, in some way... noone is perfect...and to put someone on that type of pedestal can be a lot of pressure, heaped with unlimited expectation that can leave one feeling drained...
isn't it better to SEE someone as they are and choose to love their uniqueness? to not see someone as the "potential" that they could be, but rather to cherish who they are right now...
I have a feeling, that if we're honest, we'd love those stipulations to be lifted off of us...to have the freedom to just BE and know that we are adored and loved just the way we are...
This is the way that Anthony has chosen to love me from the first time I met him.
Don't get me wrong...it's not as if we have lived a fairy tale life or that we've never had difficulties...how could anyone expect that? (although, I'm pretty sure in my naivete that I believed we could be marriage counselors at the ripe old age of 24 because we "had it all figured out")
Life is different now than what it was when we were in our 20s, and when we hit our 30s and were in the early years of our parenting...we've hit the "mid life" point now...we have entered into an entirely new arena with parenting and future goals...our physical bodies have been changing in crazy ways as well...
We have chosen to weather these waters together, but it hasn't been without waves or even storms...
I'm thankful for friends that have kept us accountable, who we both are committed to listen to when they see things in our lives that need some tweaking...(or major over-hauling too!)
Ultimately though, on this day, I'm thankful for the person that he is...in the right now...
for the character qualities that he has not only modeled through all these years but that he has purposed in his heart...these set of values by which he holds himself accountable as well.
happy birthday love!