Sometimes you just gotta change your story...

Today is our 30th anniversary and
I thought this monumental event
deserved some space in the blog this week.
It is so hard to believe that thirty years
 have gone by so quickly.

We both agree that we would go
 back and do it all over again.

All of it...even the mind numbingly, exhausting, 

terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days...

just to have an opportunity to relive 

all the moments of wonderful

we have had together and with our children.

There is a story in our family that has been
repeated hundreds of times...
always by me and always
punctuated with a dramatic eye roll
and a long suffering heavy sigh.

It goes something like this...

Well, you will never believe how
my husband proposed to me!
I nonchalantly mentioned to him
that my apartment lease
was up at the end of the month and
I am certain I was fishing for some
type of a proposal.
He responded in typical Steve fashion
and very matter of factly said,
"We might as well get married then."
That was it.

A few weeks later we were married,
but I have always felt cheated that I didn't have
a big romantic proposal story to tell...
Until now.
 

As our anniversary approached this year
I brought it up...AGAIN,
and my usually very patient husband
turned to me and said, 
"Maybe it's about time you changed your story."

Ouch...
But, he was right.
It is time to change my story.

Sadly, it is only now, thirty years later that I realize
how awful it must have made my husband feel every
single time I told this story.
And I am so, so sorry.

I promise that I will never tell that story again.

So my gift to you my dear husband is a much better version,
a much more accurate version,
of an old worn out story.
It is the version I should have been telling all along.

It goes something like this...

 Well, you will never believe how lucky I am!
Thirty years ago I received a very simple and very
sincere  proposal  from a  very extraordinary  man.
A man who understands that an expensive ring and
a fancy proposal are not the important parts.
A man who understands that the years
spent building a family together,
and building a life together
are the important parts.
I am so blessed.

I can't believe how lucky I am to be married to this guy.

a man who is a wonderful father...
a man  who  has always  put  his family  first...
a  man  who  rushes  home every night  to  be  with us...
a  man  who  believes that  family dinners  are  important...
a man who halves my burdens and doubles my happiness...
a man  who  makes me want to be a  better  person...
a  man who shows  his  love daily  in small  ways...
a man  who is patient beyond all description...
a man who holds tightly to family traditions...
a man who holds our hands as he prays...
a man  who  loves  our  God  and
a  man  who loves his  family.
a man who is good and
kind, and so very,
 very  thoughtful .
And we are
 blessed.

So my dear husband that's my new story.
I hope you can forgive me

And with all my heart I apologize...

 For the hundreds of times that I hurt your feelings and

for the hundreds times I made you feel like you failed me.

For the hundreds of times I belittled you in front of others
 and for the hundreds of times I narrowed the parameters
of our life together down to an imagined crappy proposal.

But mostly, for the hundreds of times I should have told
you instead how thankful I am that you chose me.

Happy Anniversary

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
1Corinthians 13

 2013