TBT Valentine

Dh and I don’t really do Valentine’s Day.

To be fair, we don’t do most holidays. Or anniversaries, really. I guess it comes from him not being home all that often, after a while the days stopped being that important. When we first got married we could barely afford milk so we never got much used to giving big gifts, even after we could afford things. I told him to forgo an engagement ring so we could buy a bed. When you get married as teenagers I think sometimes practicality overrules grand gestures.

So this Valentine’s Day it never even occured to me to buy Dh a gift, I can’t remember the last time we did that.

This week though, someone asked me what I could give him, if I could get him something Sunday. I said I’d probably give him a weekend home, since he’s away on course. But then they said something strange…  They said I’m a storyteller, and they asked if I’d ever given Dh a story.

I laughed at first, because let’s be honest. Dh puts up with my writing because he loves me and every time he meets someone new at work that looks at him funny before saying “hey… I’ve seen you on the internet…” or the Brigade Commander walks over to chat with him about my blog… lets just say while some guys who like attention might look at it like a perk, to Dh it’s more of a sacrifice of love.

But after I thought about it for a few days I decided that this week, with love on everyone’s mind, I could give Dh a story. It’s one he knows already, because it’s his story too. All my stories are his too. But I’m willing to bet he doesn’t know what it looked like from where I stood.

When I was 13 I met this kid who had just moved with his family from Germany.

He was super cute, he had long hair and an undercut and all the girls liked him. One evening  I happened to be at a little party he was at and I knew that my friends had told his friends that I kinda liked him, because that’s what you do when you’re 13, right? So I was super nervous, I didn’t know if he, you know, liked me too.

Dh isn’t the kind of guy that wants to spend too much time talking things out, he wasn’t even then, so he just looked at me while I played pool, walked up behind me and put his arms around me. When I relaxed in him someone in the room looked at him funny so he said “what? This is my girl now.”

How do I remember this? C’mon ladies, I don’t remember the name of the guy who took me to prom but I still remember that.

The world got pretty hazy for me as I got older, Dh and I grew apart and went to different schools. The honest truth was he couldn’t follow where I was headed.  I got myself into a bit of trouble, I ended up more than a little lost. Around the time I was finishing highschool I started to make some changes, and while most days I felt like I was barely hanging on I managed to get accepted to the Social Work program in the local college. It hadn’t been easy, I’d worked hard to clean up and I’d lost more than a few friends along the way. My parents were super encouraging and I was so happy I’d pulled it together.

When I called excitedly to tell the guy I was dating about my acceptance letter, he laughed and made some comment about how he thought it was harder to get into those programs. He joked that I’d last one semester before I realized I wasn’t really cut out for that kind of thing. In fact, more than a few ‘friends’ had that response. I had been so proud of myself, his reaction crushed me and to be honest, I started to doubt that I could do it, started to believe he might be right.

I ran into Dh among some other friends that week, by then I felt defeated, all my excitement over school had been trampled. For whatever reason as we chatted about our plans for the future I told him about my letter. He hugged me and he kissed my forehead and he whispered in my ear “I knew you could.”

That night I made a choice, I decided I was worth more encouragement than defeat, and I ended things with that guy. I drove to see Dh at his work and I told him what I did. I laughingly said “so, I’m single now.” and he said “no, you’re not.”

Like I said, he’s not really so much with the small talk.

We’d only been together a matter of weeks when he got word he was leaving for Basic Training. When I told him we couldn’t make it through that kind of separation, he said it would be fine because when he got back he was going to marry me.

I laughed and told him no one decides to marry someone after such a short time, especially not in their teens.

He said “I met you 5 years ago. What makes you think I just decided now?”

So maybe he’s not super good at romance (although, I’d argue that I guess that depends on what you find romantic) but, you guys, if you ask him how he got me to go out with him he’ll tell you it was because he had a motorcycle and while I’m not gonna lie, that was pretty hot, it’s not really why I said yes.

Dh has done a thousand things over 22 years that have won me over.

But more than anything, he looked at me when I was a little bit broken and saw what I could accomplish put back together.

And in the end, he was there when I graduated college.

Because he knew I could.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Dh.

This blog has meant I write a lot of things and I travel to a bunch of places and through it, people like to point out how much I support you in what you do because they only see the now.

But between us, we know that I’m here because you held me up first.

I think we make a pretty good team.

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