Ten Million Tears

I love my husband.

 There are times that he just stares at me and when I ask him what he's thinking about he tells me that it blows his mind that I chose him.

 But the truth is that I'm the lucky one.

I am a very difficult person to live with. I know this.

I am a list maker and task master. Inside the walls of our home I have to have everything in place and I feel totally off kilter when they are not.

Okay, I hulk out.

Truth.

This, of course, is a direct result of stress.

I. Must. Control. Chaos.

Times are stressful.

But, you see, with him I crumble.

Sometimes I don't take a call from him during the day because five minutes in and I'm a big puddle of Cassie. In my office, in the car, in the middle of the store. Doesn't matter.

This used to bother me. Immensely.

Because I had a strong-woman-I-can-do-it-all-myself image to uphold.

And because your partner is supposed to make you stronger, right?

Crying doesn't exactly make me appear the pillar of strength.

I got angry with him. I thought he didn't know me. The me that I've become in the passing years.

But the truth is he does know me.

He knows that I need a soft place to land.

That is what he is to me.

It seems that I am at the maximum level of stress at all times and at the end of the day after I've painfully gone through how I'm feeling (and, of course, I speak in epic terms)

he will kiss me and hold me close.

Even when I push him away because I want to appear stronger for a little while longer or when I'm mad at him and won't kiss him goodnight.

He will always kiss the back of my head.

He is just that person that is always there ready to catch me when I need to fall.

He is the person that helps me let go. He is the person that helps me be weak.

And that makes me stronger.

So, you see...

I'm the lucky one.

Because HE chose ME. And continues to do so.

Seven years and ten million tears later.