Happy Birthday to My Amazing Husband!

Today is my husband’s birthday. Patrick aka Hive account@serapium turns 47 years old today.

You know those romance stories I write, where the couple grows old together and are completely devoted to each other? Especially Her Fondest Memory

Those are based on the love I’ve seen from this man I’m fortunate enough to be married to for the last 24 years. He is the only person I’ve ever known that has made me believe that true love really exists.

_{Then and Now. We've had quite the life together. Look at his expressions in these selfies as he watches me. I mean come on, the guy is obviously still head over heels with my crazy ass self! <3}

Fun Fact: We were born in the same hospital 6 days apart. He was premature, so he was actually leaving the hospital the day I was born! We grew up 10 miles apart from each other, but because we lived on opposite sides of the county line, I went to a different school district.

We’ve written about the night we met, just after our 19th birthdays, but it seems really odd that we never met before that. We were both from small towns. During high school, I worked at a burger place (called Buns & Company) in the town where he lived and went to school. I went to the church where his high school girlfriend worked and I was there every time their doors were open.

We just have to have crossed paths before meeting at nineteen. It feels like it was one of those movies where the two main characters keep BARELY missing each other, but everyone watching knows that they will end up together.

We met at 19, spent some time apart, got back together and had An Unlikely Love Story, a whirlwind crazy ass 3 Day Engagement and had a Not-So-Romantic Wedding just before our 23rd birthdays, 24 years ago.

_{He was there by my side for all of our kids births. Homebirths, that he was pretty against until he actually listened to my reasoning. He's always been good about keeping an open mind and actually listening to me and respecting my opinion.}

That’s a lot of birthdays we’ve been through.

_{Photo by Stewart Maddox Photography}

This guy, though. I want to tell you the most frustrating thing about him… he doesn’t see how amazing he is. It drives me crazy that he doesn’t think he’s all that great, because he is fantastic. I’ve never met another man as devoted as he is. He has been my rock solid support through things that most people couldn't handle, and he is still my source of support and encouragement.

I love him because he writes things like this to me when we’re going through rough relationship patches (try to be with the same person for 25 years and NOT have rough patches!)

We are bigger than this. We don't just think so. We KNOW so. We've seen worse. This is... Small, by comparison. We are two eggs in the nest. Two peas in a pod. You're the cheese to my macaroni. The jelly to my roll. You're my lobster (even though that turned out not to be true. I still like it). Like it or not, we're going to figure this thing out. One way or another. We will. That's just what has to happen. Sorry to be weird if it's not the right thing. Just feeling in the zone at the moment.
I love you.

A Video I made for our 17th Anniversary that really captures at least a small part of how awesome my husband is. Please excuse my singing, it wasn't my best. :)

A few of the things that I love and appreciate about my husband:

His incredible intelligence. As much as he respects my ‘raw intelligence’ and common sense, I respect his intellect/nerdy-geeky side. We balance each other out so well.
I appreciate the fact that he is will to work through the hard shit with me. MY issues and his own. I know that was and will probably continue to be really fucking difficult for him, but he does it… even though we often have to pull back and take a break from all the heavy duty emotional work, he tries. We both do, and I love him for it. We have been so much more connected in this last year because of each of us working on our own stuff, but supporting each other and opening up lines of communication that had gotten clogged with too much… shit over the years.

_{Sitting on the back deck of our boat-home in the Bahamas}

I love His absolute hardcore, consistent and unwavering dedication to me, to us. I’ve wavered a lot, many times in our marriage, but he has always been solid as a rock when it comes to his commitment to our marriage.
I love that he can fix just about anything with an engine… especially times when he has had to search for unorthodox means and make it work. Like the time he had to make a replacement oil filter from a pair of nylons and a wire coat hanger when our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere.

_{AND he takes the time to teach our kids (and their significant others) how to do these things, too!)}
The little things, that I know he hates getting credit for, because he thinks they are things that should be done, regardless. I still REALLY appreciate them, though. Those ‘little’ things that caused comments (often), from other moms/wives because he always helped out with things like dishes, cleaning, setting things up, cooking, yard work, fixing cars, etc.
The fact that he was always the dad that all the kids wanted to play with. I know it got annoying at times, but I love that he enjoyed our kids and that he's just a kid at heart.

_{They discovered that if you stood still on this beach, you would sink. Patrick and the girls did this for the longest time, laughing their asses off.}

The fact that he has completely supported my dreams and ambitions and pretty much anything I ever wanted to do. Not just with words, either, but whenever possible, he supported me with his time and (again) his amazing ability to build/fix/create anything I needed to fulfill my own dreams. From early on in our marriage, when I would design a shelving unit or storage place or playthings for the kids (or even just give you an idea) and he would build something even better than I would have imagined… to the years of him building sets for my plays, designing and setting up the lighting and sound. We make such an incredible team. I love that about us.
And of course, the fact that I can paint our home with cartoons and a gazillion colors that make it like living on the set of a kids show… that is immeasurable.
That he not only doesn’t talk negatively about me to others, but that he can’t stand it when other men talk badly about their wives.
That he appreciates and respects women (and think we’d be so much better off in a Matriarchal society)

_{Teaching Paris the ins and outs of sailing when we lived on the sailboat.}
That he praises me OFTEN for doing such a wonderful job raising our kids. And he does so in front of our kids (who also praise me often, so it’s not like he's trying to convince them). Whether I happen to agree with him at any given time doesn’t matter. What matters is that he believes that I did that job well.

_{He is such a good dad. I still love finding the photos of him playing with the kids (Sprite used to make him play dress up with her all the time with all the fake jewelry and scarves. It was amazingly adorable. I wish I could find those photos!}