It was always you.

It’s one of those things. You know I am quiet in the morning. I need a cup of coffee, a shower, and hate being cold when I wake up. You know that I need thirty minutes before I am human, and then, I will be okay. You know I struggle to fall asleep, and even though we like different sleep elements, you will talk to me even if it’s the middle of the night, and I have a list of things on my mind. The world didn’t know how broken I was when my parents died. But you saw me beat the corner of our mattress and sob after making it home from losing my dad. You know I can’t look at their pictures too long, and no matter how many years pass, I will always cry on their birthdays and the anniversary of their deaths. You know what being there for them meant to me. It was more important than anything else in my life. I once came to get you from doing an event and walked in to hear you telling a group of people I was the strongest person you know. We didn’t talk about if I was okay, or not, but when I wasn’t, you were there. Even if I broke for thirty seconds, or needed the day to feel human. You never pushed me to share things I didn’t know how to, but you never made me feel like I couldn’t. We have both defended each other. No one could ever hurt you with me around. It didn’t matter who they were. When it came to you I was bigger than life, because you were my nook when falling asleep, my morning smile, my grocery store dance partner, my movie junkie date, my opposite in so many ways. Yet, you picked my mom up at her benefit and twirled her around after she kicked your ass at pool, and she told everyone around me she hoped I’d give you a chance. Kind of hard to turn down a date when someone bids a thousand dollars at her auction to take you on one ( kidding...kind of). But it was more than that. It was the homemade soup, and movies you brought me when I was sick. The thirty dozen roses you cut and arranged when I found out her cancer had spread, and you needed to make me smile. It was driving out to a bonfire 50 miles away at my dad’s farm to kiss me goodnight, and then driving right home because you were nervous to spend time with him at first, and the kiss was worth the drive. ( I will never forget the way he looked at me that night, “what did you do to that guy”...Dad I still have no idea). It’s taking him mud running in your Mini Cooper, worried you would get stuck, but his wild encouragement made you do it anyway.  It’s the way you look at me when I am talking and the smile you get when I am telling a story. You always listen. It’s knowing that you are going to call me when you have a bad day because you know I will always listen. It’s kissing naked on the deck, with a blanket wrapped around us, knowing that our chemistry was always bigger than any storm. It’s the pictures of old people you would take and send to me and remind me that’s what you know we will look like in forty years. It’s treating our dogs like our kids, because for some damn reason you are okay with me doing it, and you love them like I do. It’s taking the time to know me. For falling in love with me, and despite everything never quitting. For being there for me when it would have been easier to walk away. It’s always been you. I have no idea if we will be those two old grumpy ass people still madly in love with each other someday. I regret the roads it took to get here. Back here. But they lead me back to you. And no one, not a single person, has ever seen me the way you do. And I don’t care if anyone else does ever again. You gave me a lifetime of love some people never get. If I am not standing next to you at the end of it all, I don’t want to stand next to anyone. Being alone doesn’t scare me. Losing you if I know you would be happier some where else doesn’t scare me. Losing myself....ever again...scares me. But I believe what is meant to be ours...always will be. So I am not going to rush time. I am going to trust Gods plan...and I am going to keep answering the phone when you call. I am going to keep working my ass off to be the woman my parents raised me to be. And if I ever get the chance again, I am going to love you through the rest of it.