Happy Anniversary, Chief: Why I Have A Perfect Husband

Chief: My husband Jeff and I are celebrating our
fourth wedding anniversary today.  

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary. Time flies.

I thought I'd use the occasion to write an open letter to my husband Jeff, who I call Chief. Here goes:

Dear Chief,   

Hard to believe we've been married four years already.  Time flies when I'm happy, I guess.

If I had to list all the reasons why I love you'd we'd be here all week. So I'm going to dispense with the list. You know I love you for a gazillion reasons, and we'll leave it at that.

In these past four years, we've settled into being a couple old married farts, but I'm sure you'd beg to differ with that description.

Actually, I pretty much do, too, since it certainly does nothing to capture the essense of our marriage.

The old fart remark is a reference to being comfortable. Happy in our routines. 

It's just that I'm so comfortable with you around. Even when neither of us is doing anything in particular. Just vegging in front of the TV. Having another dinner. Or when you're downstairs at your drafting table and I'm playing around on my laptop in my office.

All "boring" routine things that old farts do.

I feel safe. At home. In every sense of the word, whatever we're doing, whenever we're doing it.

Jeff ripping apart part of our deck this summer to retrieve the
wedding ring I dropped between the boards
Repairs were quick, by the way. 

Home is a refuge. And I don't mean just a house. 

Our home is a place where I still get a spasm of delight when I pull into the driveway and your Jeep is there. That means you're home. And I'm happy.

I even get a little pang of disappointment when I arrive home from work and I see you're not there. 

You're still at work, or grocery shopping, and you'll be home soon. But I still miss you and feel a little bit too alone when you're doing something routine like that.  

Oh, I can handle myself just fine when you're not home.  But I feel my heart lift when you're around. The other night I called it "the vapors" You just make my heart race with joy, is all.   

Another thing that makes me feel secure -  at home and comfortable -  is you have faith in me even when I don't have faith in myself.

I'm impatient.  I have ambitious plans for the gardens around our house and the plans are moving too slowly. Meanwhile, you create an enormous, beautiful outdoor deck so we can enjoy our home even more. You created it seemingly in an instant, while I plod along.

You constantly remind me my projects are a process, that you delight in seeing the slowly expanding flower beds, the incremental transformations in our yard. 

Jeff and his mom. He's as good a son as he is a husband! 

You always come to my rescue. Even little instances. 

Like when I dropped my wedding ring between the boards of the deck, and you ripped up some of the boards to retrieve it. My hero! And I'm not being facetious. You ARE my hero. 

I might not show it through my frustrations  but again and always, your words and support and love make me feel safe in my own chaotic head.

I keep bringing up the word "safe."  Love, when done right, is a safe place. It's a shield against all the hate and turbulence and weirdness of the world.  I think - I hope - we're doing love right. 

In the evening, when we're watching TV, you sit in your big armchair, and I'm usually on the couch with our crazy dogs Jackson and Tonks.

I don't think you notice that sometimes I go quiet and stare at you instead of the TV screen. Yeah, the antics on "America's Got Talent" are fun enough, but the real entertainment for me is you.

Not the fact that you're sitting there watching TV. No, the entertainment is the fact that you're there. Home, with me.  

So I watch you as you giggle at "The Big Bang Theory" or roll your eyes at the politicians Rachel Maddow is picking on.

And I feel so lucky, so over the moon in love with the guy in the armchair watching TV.

Because the guy in the armchair is the one who never makes me feel lonely, who always makes me feel safe, who has made me so happy to be alive.  The one I want to be with forever and ever. I don't want this to ever end.

Thanks, Chief, for always being there.

And Chief: Happy anniversary. We're celebrating our fourth. Let's go for 40!

Love, Matt

Of course I dedicate this song to Chief, too: