Stephanie Says.. Take a walk inside my head

Seventeen years ago, I woke up before anyone else and ran around the house saying “I’m getting married! I’m getting married!” Over a decade and a half later, I look back at that twenty three year old and shake my head. Kenneth Sims and I seem so YOUNG to me now. We’ve been up…way up and we’ve been very very down.
Our first ten years of marriage saw several hospitalizations and funerals.
We almost didn’t make it through our first five years.
We’ve had raised voices and slamming doors. We’ve had weeks of barely speaking to each other. We’ve had nights when we tore out each others’ hearts and stomped each other to pieces.
But…but…
This man. This man.
This is the man who turned up the stove when the water heater went out so I wouldn’t freeze while washing my hair.
This is the man who carries our littlest cat on his shoulder because in her heart she wants to be a parrot.
This is the man who fixed my ponytails when I got hit by a car and couldn’t raise up my arms to do it myself.
He’s bought me gallons of bubbles just because I like to blow them.
He trusts me to work with the bank deposits, even though I don’t math. Ever.
He slides up beside me just to tell me a corny joke and shoot me a cheesy grin.
This is the man who encourages my solos, even though he can’t sing a note himself.
This is the man who takes off work early just to take me to see Johnny Depp’s latest movie…KNOWING that he’ll hate it, yet going anyway.
This is the man who took me to see Wicked, even though he hates hates hates musical theatre.
This is the man who introduced me to Styx and Foreigner and let me walk around singing “Crystal B-a-a-alllllll” until he wanted to tear his hair out.
This is the man who got me to sleep on the floor for a year, even though the concept sounded like something from a movie to me.
This is the man who taught me to play chess and even let me win a game or two.
This man…
I call him old because he can remember the Moon Landing.
I call him weird because of his sense of humor.
I shake my head and stomp my feet and wonder how in the WORLD we ever got together in the first place.
But I know…
I know…
I was seventeen years old and God put him in front of me. There he was…strange and smart and grown up at twenty eight.
It’s not been an easy seventeen years. It’s not always been good. It’s not always been peaceful. It’s not always been happy.
But I’ve always known…always believed…
That God put this man in front of me…
FOR me.
To be my love.
To be my husband.
To be my home.
Happy Anniversary, Kenneth Sims. You’re still strange. You’re still old. But I can’t…I can’t…I can’t ever imagine doing this
With anybody
Anybody
Anybody
Else