Warning: I am raving about my husband, so if you don't like lovey-dovey, avert your eyes!
Today when I was on the phone with David, he started laughing and said, "I just posted something on your Facebook." I knew by his laugh he was up to something. I asked him what it was and he said he saw it in a newspaper he was reading. I asked him where he found a newspaper and he said, "I found it." Clearly, I know he's full of himself. I look on my wall and it says:
21 year old deployed soldier in the U.S. Army that has Star Wars bed sheets and watched the Lion King after two week long missions, interested?
This thing he "found in the newspaper" was his own personal ad that he made up, and it is him to a tee. When he got there, he asked me for some sort of cartoon sheets--Spiderman, Batman--just not Toy Story because he already had those. So when I found sheets from his favorite movies ever, I had to get them for him. My husband is also obsessed with Disney movies, particularly The Lion King. We are probably the only couple in the world to have an intellectual conversation about The Lion King. This morning we were discussing how when you watch that movie when you're older, it's totally different. These are the things I love about my husband. Actually, it is my favorite thing. He is a
big kid, and that has made
me a better person.
Growing up--geeze, from the time I was in second grade--I have always been a serious academic. I remember in fourth grade I cried my eyes out and beat myself up because I got my first C (in math, of course). In eleventh grade, when I was taking six AP classes, I was crying and depressed over my work load. But I chose those many classes because I wanted to excel at everything and say that I did it. From grade school, I have been overly serious about my goals and willing to sacrifice any fun for school. I've just always been a serious person. Not that it's a bad thing to be driven, but no fourth grader should think the world is ending because she got a C in one subject for a single six-weeks report card. This seriousness transferred over to my relationships when I got older. Because I was independent and strong-willed, I always found myself in relationships where "I wore the pants." My aunt always told me that the man I would marry would be the one who would balance me out and tell me when to step down from my pants-wearing throne. She was exactly right.
David, growing up, was the opposite of me. He wasn't a fan of school, wasn't in class half the time, and when he was in class, he was worried about making everyone laugh (and in the process pissing the teacher off). I was always jealous of him in the class that we shared together. Here I am trying to be a perfectionist with my artwork and stressing over every single brush stroke, and there he was, every day, making our classmates laugh at all of his crazy antics, and telling our teacher what we all wanted to say to her but didn't. He had what I was missing--the ability to laugh at life, laugh at yourself, and make others laugh.
From the time we started "talking" in the spring of 2010, my whole view of life changed. I started to not sweat the small stuff. I started to be able to laugh at myself when I did something dumb instead of beating myself up. I learned that every now and then it's good to just have a lazy day and forget the school work. I learned that sharing opinions and decisions feels so much better than doing them all your way. I started to have a sense of humor and actually make other people laugh. And when I get overworked and over-stressed now, he makes me laugh and all my worries disappear. And when he is having a bad day, I can make him laugh and feel better. I never could have done that for people before him. I've always told him that was his gift from God--the ability to make people laugh. I told him before he left that he would be a beacon of light in Afghanistan because he would be able to make his men laugh when they all were exhausted, sad, missing home. I think if it wasn't for his ability to make me laugh, and my new-found ability to make him laugh, we wouldn't be doing half as good as we have been doing during this deployment.
We always say that no matter how old we are, we'll never grow up (there's another Disney movie for you). I always wanted to grow up. I rushed to grow up when I was younger. Now, our whimsy and laughter will keep us young forever, and I love that. That's one of the reasons I think we both can't wait (but are waiting) to have kids, is that we'll get to play with toys and watch Disney movies and be even more like kids.
