Inspired by the bloggers, NieNie and Finding Zen, two women whose blogs I love and have written posts or letters about or to their husbands. Stella recently wrote about exploding ovaries (and who wouldn't blame her). NieNie writes love letters to her husband on occasion. Both women have different approaches but I appreciate them both. So now I decided to attempt my take on a love letter to The Prof.
Dear Sweetie,*
You are not romantic. But nor am I. We are not about sweeping off our feet dozen roses riding into the sunset type of romance. That is okay. I don't want that. If you tried, I would give you a funny look and ask you: Please. Stop. You do not whisper sweet nothings into my ear in the lovey dovey way. If you did, we would not be here today, would we, ten and a half years later.
Why or how have you captured my heart? Perhaps it was after our first date when my cat died. You called to check on me and told me to call you any time of the night if I wanted to talk. You bought me a lovely single rose. You held my hand as I told you how special Leo was to me. At that point, my cat held my heart more than you. But it is you who won it.
Our love is not the kind of movies or fairy tales. Drama is kept to a minimum, and silliness is encouraged and nurtured. You make me laugh when you make up songs about our cats or toilet paper, or even stinky farts. You love my air guitar even though I know I look like the stiff white girl I am. Maybe that is why.
And it is all the weird things that I adore about you. I love it when you come home and after saying hello to me, you search for our blind cat to give him smooches. I love that you adore animals almost as much as me and will call when you see a "buddy"** eating grass on the side of the road. I love your obsession with maps and if there is a question about a location, route or major land mark, you pull out a map and go into a full lecture about where it is, the elevation, and various things honestly I really didn't need to know. I love that you are a scientist and are so scary smart. Your ability to understand the wildly complex is astounding. I love your need to go to the wilderness to unwind and your connection to nature. I only wish we lived closer so we could hike and camp in the back country and perhaps rock climb again like we did when we were younger. I love that when you have access to cable while away at a conference, rather than watching a movie or The Discovery Channel, you watch The Incredible Hulk. I love and hate, at the same time, that you insist on watching Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Air Force One, and about a half dozen movies over and over and over and over again when they come on television. I can only take so much of those cheesy romantic scenes. Apparently, you can. Go figure.
There are so many weird things I love about you. Just know that I will be there when you are 92 and I am 86 years old to wipe your ass when you no longer can.***
I love you the mostest of the mostest forever,****
Your Sweetie
*I rarely call The Prof by his name unless we are at a store and I'm calling him. It's always Sweetie for both of us. The funny thing is when he leaves me a message on my voice mail, he'll say "Hi Sweetie, it's The Prof." Um, who else would be calling me Sweetie?
**Buddies are groundhogs. Whenever we are driving and see one, we have to point them out. The Prof started calling them Buddies. It stuck.
***Yes, we say that. We do not talk about sitting together on a porch in our rocking chairs in our old age. It's all about wiping the arses.
****And yes, we say that too. One of my friends who reads this can recall before a flight on Spring Break in law school (yes I did Spring Break when I was 30!), I said that to him on the phone before we took off. She and our other friend had a good laugh on my account and so can you.
