My Valentine’s Day Challenge

All week, I’ve been seeing the “Valentine’s Day Challenge.”  You know the drill – where did you meet, who said “I love you first,” etc.  I’ve done it a couple of times, and once in a while, the answers about who does what NOW change – but basically, it’s old news.

Valentine’s Day is not a big deal to me.  Sure, it’s fun to get candy and flowers and a card that says “I love you,” and maybe if you’re dating, it’s exciting and fresh, but let’s be real.  I’m babysitting this weekend.  Tomorrow, the boys and I will make heart-shaped pancakes, and then we’re going to paint the living room.  HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

But what ABOUT my Valentine?  As Joe sleeps in the next room, I reflect on our 12 years together, since our first date (12/12/08).

I am not an easy person to live with.  I know most people would say the same thing about themselves, and they may be right.  Maybe none of us is “easy” to live with.  I know I’m not.  And really, neither is Joe.  But there’s a huge difference.

Joe is a man of few words.  He doesn’t talk much, rarely argues, and goes along with pretty much everything.  In fact, this has created a problem in some ways, since the one thing we DO have in common is that we are both indecisive, which makes “what to do” (no matter what it is – where to go on vacation, what kind of furniture to buy, what to have for dinner) sometimes a ridiculously difficult decision.  But that being said, he is pretty much the most agreeable man I’ve ever met.  No matter what I want, unless it’s not doable, he’ll do it.  If I tell him we’re going to someone’s house for dinner, we go.  If I say I want to go shopping, we go.  I wanted to go to Niagara Falls.  Last year, that’s where we went.  Three years ago, he came home from work, and I said “We need to get this dog.”  “We don’t need another dog.” (I should say he was 100 percent correct).  Guess what?  Hell, he took me on a Disney Cruise for my birthday because my son was performing.  That is something I could not have done without him.

This is huge because I am anything but agreeable.  In fact, I am so disagreeable, his silence and stoicism sometimes actually stoke my disagreement.  I sometimes get angrier when he DOESN’T disagree with me than when he does.  I love a good fight, and ours are generally between me and myself.  But this is about him, not me, so I’m not going to go into that here.

My husband is the kind of person that will do anything and everything for the people he loves.  Every morning – every single morning – at some ridiculous time – he gets up and walks our dogs.  In the winter, which in my world is late-October through early-May, he walks them 99 percent of the time. If it goes over 40, I might go with him, and every so often, I go myself.  But rarely.  Even in the summer, when we do the later walks together, he does all of them – and the early one alone.  In the snow, sleet, rain – he’s a damn postal employee with the dogs.  This is heroic to me.  It is so well known that he often gets, from one of our family members, a “dog-walking bag of warmth” for Christmas. 

When Joe hears something, if it’s at all possible, he acts on it.  A movie you mention you wanted to see, a new recipe you thought would be fun.  You say something offhand you don’t even realize he hears, and the next thing you know, it ‘s done. 

When we first started dating, I was in my first semester of college.  He has literally been here, in my life, since the beginning.  He has often had to take the brunt of responsibility for things because I’m “too busy doing homework,” or reading, or writing, or working AT work to do them.  He has been the rock while I’m in school – whether it be holding me while I sob in frustration, helping me figure something out technologically, or just doing everything around the house so I can study. He does most of the cooking, the cleaning, his own laundry, the grocery shopping, takes out the garbage, and picks up the slack for all the things I should be doing and don’t.  And he does them without complaining.  If I tell him we’ve got the grandsons for the weekend, okay.  If he’s walking the dogs and they clamor to go with him, he takes them.  And if Elijah gets even slightly hurt, “Unka Joe” better be standing by with a “Sana Colita” for him.

I could go on and on about the things he does, but you get it.

Our marriage is not perfect.  I don’t think so, anyway, since I don’t even know what perfect might look like.  We have had many ups and downs over the past 12 years.  We’ve had health scares, family issues, money problems, totaled cars, job losses, and…oh…that’s right…a pandemic.  We’ve struggled through the illnesses (and deaths and divorces) of family members and friends, both with them and with each other.  All being said, we are two people from opposite sides of the world, so to speak, trying to make a life work at 50 years old.  Our kids were grown, our habits were set, and we wanted different things.  Yet somehow, we kept it together long enough to look back on a 12 year relationship with gratitude and love.  We’ve enjoyed multiple cruises, bought a house, adopted two dogs and a cat, and had an amazing wedding. 

We have grown together in many ways.  We still don’t like the same movies LOL, but I’ve found a love for Spanish music and arroz con gandules, he sits through episode after episode of Law & Order, SVU, and we have an agreement – I don’t use quick-cooking rice, and he doesn’t use jarred spaghetti sauce.  He tolerates my addiction to kitchen gadgets, and I tolerate his desire to be an entrepreneur, and to be honest, admire his persistence.  He cleans out the refrigerator, and I put the toilet seat down without complaining (in my own house, at least).

Twelve years changes people.  In 12 years, a lot can happen, and neither Joe nor I are the same people we were in 2008.  Some of that is because the world is not the same, and we have to grow and change with it.  Some of it is because we’ve both been exposed to so much as a result of my education (you don’t think I watch those documentaries alone, do you?) that we are wiser and more knowledgeable people.  Whatever the case, we are not the same, and our relationship is not the same.

It’s better.  I love you, Joe.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  Thank you for being you.  You are my person.

Don’t take my word for it, look it up yourself. Remember, Grandma Lili loves you!