Of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, by far the best one was to ask Michelle to marry me. While I’m sure I could have met someone else and been reasonably happy, there’s no way my life would have been the adventure it’s been in the five years since we met.
She pushes me, in a good way. Never through words – everything that comes out of her mouth is supportive and kind and loving. It’s through her actions – the way she writes down a list of things she needs to do and attacks it. The way she reviews and re-calibrates the direction her life is going on at least a monthly basis, making more time for the things that are most important to her. The way that she actually is eager to get up in the morning – the woman woke up at 6am on Labor Day because she was so excited to take a walk by the water when the sun was coming up.
While I have a skeptical streak in me, she overflows with possibility and joy. She very seriously believes that most things in this world are good – which many people say they believe but their lives suggest otherwise. She gets just as excited when she gets a good review at work as she does about me buying her Raisin Nut Bran from the grocery store.
I read once that if you were to write down the five people you spend the most time with and examine their lives, that’s your future. And to the degree that you want your future to be different, you might need to spend more time with different people.
Which, if it’s true, means that I could not have possibly done better at picking a spouse. The last five years have been one big attempt to be good enough for her – and I mean that in the best possible sense. Not good enough because she demands or expects it – she actually thinks I’m pretty swell already. But good enough because she deserves someone who is her equal, someone who makes her feel the way she makes me feel.
A tall task, but I’m eternally thankful that I get to try.
Happy anniversary sweetheart.
