In honor of February being the month of Valentine's Day, cupid, love and all that, I thought I would do some mushy lovey dovey type posts about love and all that good stuff.
First, I just wanted to be super thankful for my husband and illustrate this with the ways in which he - @serapium aka Patrick tells me “I love you” because well, we’ve been together for 25 years (HOLY BEANS! That’s a long freaking time!) and I think that he is the best person possible to illustrate it!
One
There’s the “I love you” when I’ve done something silly or odd that is just so typically… me. Those things that he doesn’t understand at all but for some reason still finds endearing. He gets this little bit of a sparkle in his eye and smiles at me and says, “I love you” in that tone that has a little bit of ‘You are SO WEIRD’ but also ‘That is what I love about you’ in it. It’s pretty sweet. One of my favorite I love you’s For instance the other day I got REALLY excited when I realized that it is almost February, which means I get to start tracking things in my Art/Bullet Journal! AND it should be noted that my husband is the serious type all the time and is never ever EVER silly himself.
Two
Then there is the deep contented sigh he lets out every night when he comes to bed and his head hits the pillow. He reminds me often that this particular I love you sigh means, “I know that everything is right with the world when I can come to bed and lie down next to you.” I actually wrote a story based on this called Her Fondest Memories that actually made me cry in the end!
Three
And then there are the non-verbal ways he says, “I love you.” He knows that I loathe running errands. I actually really hate leaving the house at all, but especially running errands. So he always messages me when he’s out and about and will say, “I’m on my way home, do you need anything?” and I know that without a doubt, even if he’s already been to the store, he is always willing to stop by one more time if there is something I want or I need.
Four
When I’m PMSing and craving chocolate, he’ll bring me home a bag with my favorite variety, because he knows that I never really know what I want until I see it. AND even better, if I’m on a low carb diet or restricting my diet for any reason, he finds something that fits within my needs and brings me that instead. I imagine that he has a database stored somewhere in his brain that computes my actual chocolate/sweet needs and requirements. beep beep boop boop Halo Top high protein ice cream this week! Beep beep boop boop (I imagine his computer-y sounds are more accurate than mine, but you get the idea.)
Five
He shows me huge I love yous in his supportiveness of my need for color in my life. Not just color, but crazy we-live-on-the-set-of-a-children’s-show levels of color. I don’t know how I can best illustrate this other than to tell you the story of the Happy Good Morning Chicken. I think the full story of my colorful life probably needs its own post, but let’s just say that one day I was painting the entryway and noticed this odd circle shape on the wall.
I said to myself, “Self, that looks like a giant eyeball!” and so being myself, I painted a giant eyeball… and then painted this chicken around that eyeball. When my husband came home, the first thing he saw was the bird on the wall and I said, “Don’t worry, I can paint over it, I just thought it was fun… it was calling to me!”
He laughed and said, “Don’t you dare paint over it! I love it! It will make me laugh every morning!”
(and further on in the story, I DID eventuallypaint over the Happy Good Morning Chicken and he was sad… is still sad and STILL gives me a hard time about ‘burying’ his happy chicken under layers of paint!)
Six
There are the times when I’m feeling completely and emotionally drained, exhausted and feel like I just can not do one more thing. It may be because of my Social Anxiety Issues or just because I haven’t been sleeping well for weeks on end. Whatever the reason, he will take it upon himself to take the kids out for a movie or if I’m feeling it, send ME out of the house to hang out with a friend. It doesn’t seem to matter if he’s tired himself or if he’d rather stay home. He will do whatever he can to help me feel better.
Seven
The current I love you where he gives me the fasciablaster back massage once or twice a week because he knows that it helps me sleep, helps me feel much better physically for several reasons. Plus, he doesn't complain that our bathroom now does double duty as an infrared sauna and is often HOT and somewhat... oily. Yeah, so I did fix that problem by putting down a yoga mat, but he didn't even freak out too much when he almost DIED from slipping on the oil that gets everywhere when I'm fasciablasting. :/ Oops.
Eight
The I love yous when he tells me that I’m fantastic at the things I love doing, like writing, for instance. Or he jumps in and physically helps me accomplish the things that I love to do. The plays that I consider a HUGE success in my life were only possible because he was there, behind the scenes, building the sets from drawings that I made, setting up the lighting to fit the scenes that I wrote and organizing all of the technical stuff, the parts that I wasn’t adept at myself. He always made everything flow smoothly and still gave me the credit for being creative and putting things together… even though I am positive it would never have been even half as good without his help, support and input!
Nine
Then there are the amazingly wonderful things he says to me (or writes about me) in public places/online that show he is absolutely, 200% committed to me and loves me beyond what I ever even thought was possible. Feeling truly respected and admired this way is pretty freaking amazing. His introduction post on steemit even shows how he feels about me... and this isn't just for show either. He lives this out with his words and actions all the time.
Ten
And ten… the TMI part that I won’t write about here, but that’s a pretty awesome way to show that you love someone, if you’re in that kind of relationship! ;) And in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with raising kids to see that marriage can stay sexy!
OH WAIT! I do have something of a physical nature that he ALSO does that makes me feel loved! He also makes a fantastic workout partner as well! We are building workout things in our house for a home workout space and it's pretty legit already thanks to him!
I think I’ll leave it at that. For now. I could probably write pages more, but I really just wanted to illustrate the fact that love can be shown beyond just words, but also through actions and although all of us have our own “Love Languages,” those can change over the course of our lives and I think that knowing each other, respecting each other and taking the time to pay attention to each other is essential for knowing what your partner’s love language needs are.
All that being said, our relationship isn’t always perfect… I don’t think anyone has that because we’re all human. In our case, I feel like I’m falling short far more often than I should be, but I am always trying to be better at showing that I love him just as much. I do think that I have a pretty amazing, solid and supportive, loving man here and I can’t imagine anyone better for me.
I want to write about all kinds of love things this month, but I thought that just acknowledging and appreciating my husband for all that he does was the best way to start!
Hmmm... What should I write about NEXT on the topic of Love?
