After a crush

A couple years ago, I had a crush on a boy. We had both recently gotten out of long-term relationships, and the wounds were still raw, even bleeding (Cami's metaphor). After months of torturing myself with reasons why I shouldn't, I rallied what very little courage I had in the romance-pursuing department, and confessed my crush. A few days later he confessed that "the feelings were mutual." What comes after a crush? We waited a few months before dating, and became close friends. And then one evening as we were talking, he reached for my hand, and I knew with perfect clarity that he was the one for me.

The rest is history, and now we share an apartment, some cheap furniture, and a baby girl.

It's been a year since I walked down the isle, said the words, "I do."

A long year.

My husband has since held my hand through approximately five hundred vomiting episodes, through both of my dearly loved grandmothers' funerals, through a scary premature birth during which he refused to leave my side even to get lunch, through a hundred scary episodes of Dexter, through my post-partum anxiety attacks, through a dozen gallstones, and through failed experiments. He has put my socks and shoes on my feet on for months when I couldn't reach my feet, has cleaned dog feces off my shoes because I couldn't handle the smell (and that was after I gave birth), has made me dinner a thousand times, has sacrificed much personal and work time to spend time with me and our daughter.

He has seen the very worst of me, and stayed by my side. And every time he reaches for my hand, I know with perfect clarity that he is the one for me.