on love

“Love doesn’t mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Ah Valentines Day, One of two days each year that I can write sappy, loving things about my husband and no one can get mad at me (The other is our Anniversary). I have learned a lot about love the past year and a half and definitely understand it much more than I ever could before.

Loving him doesn’t always mean liking him. I think that is the biggest thing that I have learned. My feelings in the moment towards my husband doesn’t affect the fact that I want to spend every day with him and can’t imagine my life without him in it. Every decision I make doesn’t just involve me anymore.

I am so grateful to Nigel. Earlier in life I had no desire to get married before I was completely finished with school and partly that was because I wasn’t sure where school would take me. When it got the to point of my life that I was applying for schools however, I realized that I really didn’t want to do two years of long-distance. I didn’t think that he would be willing to change his whole life for me, but then he did. He packed up everything, quit his job, and moved across the country for me and part of me doesn’t know how I can ever repay him for that.

Now I can’t imagine my life if I had gone away to school alone. Nigel being here has given me so many opportunities that I wouldn’t have had on my own and those are just the practical and monetary opportunities. I doubted my ability to be a married student and yet he and I prove my assumptions wrong each and every day.

Love isn’t always big gestures, sometimes it means changing plans to get take-out Chinese food and watching the Olympics on the couch (not that this happened on Sunday), sometimes it means reading poetry in bed as the other person falls asleep. It means that one of our favourite dates is going grocery shopping, and that even when we don’t want to be around people we want to be with each other.

I love how Nigel is so caring not just about me, but for random people that we meet in our day to day life. Seeing him care for others makes me fall more in love with him whether that is paying for the woman’s groceries ahead of us who didn’t have enough for what was in her basket or giving a gift card to the Roger’s employee who helped us on a super rough day.

I love that Nigel loves to drive. We have traveled quite a few kilometers over the past few years and even before that he was driving an hour each way to see me. We have seen a lot of this country with him at the wheel and 14 hour driving days feel like nothing when I am beside him.

Thank you for putting up with my craziness. I know that sometimes I can be a little out-there and yet most of the time you get me. And those times that you don’t quite understand why I do what I do, you still love me and that is all I ask for. Thank you for being the one who can sew, for being the best cuddler in the world, and for joining me on a lot of long walks.

But most of all thank you for advocating for me and believing in me more than anyone else. I sometimes get embarrassed when you talk me up to all your students and coworkers but I secretly love it. Even when I am having doubts and don’t always think that I can do you, you bring me up.

I love you so much Nigel and I love that our love story is only just beginning.