Because I probably don't say it enough, but I don't want you to get a big head about it...

I sit in the living room filled with both our things as I read about the you that exists before I knew you. It's dark and raining so loud I can hear the drops hit the earth of the yard you tend to, while I bake or clean or pretend to be busy so that I don't have to help. As I finger the pages filled with your words and pictures of a younger version of you, with more hair on your head and less on your face, I am filled with pride. I am proud of myself for nabbing you, but moreso of the man you are and of the life we have built together.

Normally, I would shirk at such items. I tend toward indifference of your accomplishments before me, not because I am not happy they exist, but because they remind me that you did, in fact, exist before me. I wonder if you were the kind of man I would have been proud of. The pessimist in me usually says no, because I know I was not always the kind of girl you would have been proud to call yours. I have made poor decisions, maybe a few times, and been awful to people who love me. There was a point in my life when I didn't care who I hurt. I assumed people would stay near me no matter what. Most didn't. When I look back at some things I have said and done, I question the integrity of those who did, but I am grateful to them for doing so.

But you, it seems, have always had a better head on your shoulders. Now, I am sure you have made a mistake or two, but unless you are an impeccable PR genius, or paid off anyone who ever wrote about you, you have always been a decent human. Suddenly, that realization snaps me back to a day while we were first dating:

We had taken the dogs on a hike to a nearby waterfall. I still remember walking behind you in the early fall, while the daytime was still warm. I followed you, and stared at your tight little bum, as I listened to the sound of your voice drowned out by the hiss of the wind through dry leaves in the trees and the crunch of the ones under my feet. After my move to the mainland, my life was bursting with possibilities and my future seemed limitless. Through my excitement I was scared and unsure. Being that you were one of the few people I knew at this point, I used the opportunity to test your character and asked for your advice. Your response was unexpected and refreshing. Despite an obvious bias, you offered me the kind of objective advice I needed. You left yourself out of it, and thought only of what would create the best kind of experience for me. I was in awe of your maturity and level-headedness.

Once we got home, which was actually your house in which I basically stole from you after the first day we met, you offered me something even more unexpected; you offered me your support. Not monetary, but the kind one really, truly needs from a partner. Despite your own obvious opportunities, you offered to put certain things aside to allow us the time and place to form a single life from two which had been separate until then. Your whole life had been spent in the spotlight, and yet, you were so quick to relinquish it to help me achieve this goal. It was at that moment that I fell in love with you.

Since that time, many things have changed. The aforementioned goal is now a memory, gone the way of many of the things I have 'wanted to do' in my lifetime. Despite this disappointment, many good things have occurred.

We built a life and a home in a new place where we both feel at peace.

We have added to our 'family'.

We have organized and downsized our belongings, and yet still manage to have way too much 'stuff'. The one thing that hasn't changed, though, is that feeling I get, not at every moment of every day, but sometimes. When I least expect it, I find a new way to fall in love with you.

I love you more than Christmas.