Complete

Yesterday at work one of the women asked how long my husband were together as I described some of the silly things we had done on our anniversary. I told her it had been twenty years. She smiled and said, “That makes a lot of sense and explains an awful lot.” I responded with a raised eyebrow and simply, “It does?” She is older than I am by about ten years. She looked at me, smiled wide and nodded again. “Your demeanor. You have the self confidence and self assurance of a woman at least ten years your senior. That usually doesn’t happen in women your age. Too young, too little experience in being secure enough to be that confident. You however have the advantage of being in a secure relationship, and that explains why you are as confident as you are.”

I shrugged, “I was a cop a long time though.” She nodded. “That’s part of it, but it’s more than that. You don’t even seem to notice men. I watch them notice you, but your eyes are on the dog. They come back and you don’t even know who they are, but the dogs you know by name the moment you see them. That and you spend your free minutes sending your husband text messages that make you giggle. That says to me you’re secure for a reason, and you have a relationship that gives it to you.” I laughed and conceded perhaps she was right. I do send my husband random sassy messages throughout each and every day. His responses are always well worth the time spent typing them out.

I grinned my mischievous grin. “I like the dogs better then the men, and besides the dogs don’t slip me their business card in between the dollars of my tip.” At that point we all laughed. We have a plastic container that we keep the business cards men give us. We’ve got quite a collection. Should you be looking for someone for any facet of work on your home in our area I’m sure we have someone for you. Every four or five months or so we go through the cards and put them in piles. Those we have multiples cards from get the creepy charge. Their price goes up $5. We staple them together and when we get more we make a Jacob’s Ladder out of them. One fellow had his price go up about $20. He still comes to us, and still gets his dog groomed. If he were a painter and thought perhaps we could use a painter, or overheard us talking about having something painted even would be one thing, but he’s an upper management executive in a computer firm. We don’t even have a computer in the shop. So he goes in the creepy file because he always slips it nonchalantly in between the dollars of the tip. More than one card slipped between the dollars of a tip is simply…creepy. Now if someone leaves their card when they drop the dog off we staple that to the dog’s file, for contact purposes. If they leave it after, well we don’t really need to contact them now they have their dog, so why leave a card? We also put the initial of the person they gave the card too, so that when we go through them we can give them grief. It’s just our way of showing that we care about one another to give that person eight hours of non stop teasing.

I am secure. I am self sufficient, and yet I find the only human being I need, or have ever needed for that matter (since about the age of 10) is my husband. I let him do all the cursory manly things of opening jars and stuck windows and all that sort of thing to remind him that he is stronger than I am, and were it not for him I’d probably be sawing the top off said soda bottle or prying the window open with some sort of tool. He’s always good about my request for aid.

I also can’t imagine coming home and not seeing his shoes scattered at the bottom of the stairs. He only has three pair, and no matter how long it’s been since he has worn them for some reason no matter how many times I right them, they tend to stray in all sorts of ways. I think he does it on purpose. I can picture him laughing as they sets them all crooked as he leaves for work.

We have had a rule that whoever is home first must drop everything they are doing, and greet the other when they arrive. It’s a simple ritual, but it reminds the person that they are indeed the most important thing that exists. I make a point of not doing anything or being on the phone when I know he is due home. Sounds old fashioned I guess, but I haven’t seen him in more hours than I care to be apart from him and his arms are the one place I desire to be the most in all the world. I recall saying to a friend that I don’t think I could breathe if I didn’t see him about every twelve hours. We’ve never spent a night apart, ever. It’s on purpose. The guys had asked him to go on a trip, camping. I encouraged him to go, and he didn’t want to. I told him of the exciting things they’d be doing and how it sounded like fun. He shook his head and said, “My best friend won’t be there, and I refuse to sleep on the ground alone.” I couldn’t really argue with that reasoning. So much of my self assurance after personal examination comes from the fact that he does desire to be with me over any place in the world.

I have had the fortune to find the person I would have searched for my entire life had I not met him at a young age. Our meeting was as we were discussing today the longest chain of events that had to occur in just the right order for them to occur at all. The slightest alteration and we never would have met. The weirdest part is that that day neither of us were where we were going to be, or doing what was planned. Both of our plans had gone completely askew, and fortune that had for both of us been exceptionally bad up to that moment, turned as if by a switch.

So I would have to agree that peace, self assurance, confidence, and being grounded comes much from the simple and yet complex ability to have the singular thing in life that provides you eternal joy. For me it is my husband. I cherish the life we have built together, for better and for worse, and we’ve had both, but somehow his very presence makes the worse part, not quite so awful. I know so many people who have not found this, this indescribable intangible thing that exists when you have the singular thing you’ve always dreamed of having yet thought unattainable. To all of them I wish them the fortune that turns on like a switch on the day they thought was going to be simply horrid, and they too have their dream, the dream they didn’t know they could even dream, whatever it may be, come true.