Unsaid Thanks, Part 4

9. If I honestly diagnose myself, I have to acknowledge I am not an easy person to have a relationship with. I don't want to be this way, but I am. I quickly dismiss emotion. I am overly logical, trying to apply it to every situation. I am judgmental, holding people to standards the aren't appropriate. I want those around me to be productive, while I am justifying my own laziness. In arguments I can and will twist the words of my opposition to get them flustered. I'm certain there are good things to counterbalance some of this, but in order for you to understand the depth of my thanks, it is import to understand the difficulty I, by my nature, present.

I am not comfortable talking about romantic things. I'm pretty sure this is because I am a man. My wife, after reading this, will be rolling her eyes.

My wife Shelly and I met at Arby's. It is there we became friends. How we became friends is a bit of a mystery. She read cheesy romance novels, I made fun of them. She loved 80's music, I made fun of it. She was not a fan of having the things she likes picked on, but tolerated me doing it. There was no romance, but it was here we became the most unlikely friends.

By all normal expectations, when I went to college, this friendship should have ended. This is what happens, friends go to college and lose track of each other. Not us. We wrote and called and met when we could. In many ways the gap between Plymouth and Kalamazoo was one the fused us together. There was no romance, but we were closer friends than ever.

In the next few years many things happened. We got an apartment together, worked at La Cantina together, built a life together. This wasn't romance. I even remember you wrote me a letter, a beautiful letter, asking the question. What if? In my rational, reasoned and cold way, I told you no. This didn't fit into the life I imagined. What I have never said, even resisted admitting, is it was this letter, this act, that cracked the door. While I said no, my mind never stopped working the, "what if" question. It awakened something in me I had worked hard to repress, uncontrolled emotion.

I never took back my words, but you knew. I loved you, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why you loved me. I carried all of these nearly anti-love traits and you loved me all the more. It changed who I was. You made me better. Somehow fixed that part in me that was broken. This is the best way I have been wrong in my entire life.

So, for loving me when I was working to be unlovable, for completing me when I had so many holes, for making every year better than the year before, for being right when it mattered most, Shelly, thank you.

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This is the last in this series of Unsaid Thanks, and I can't think of a better place to end. I originally started with ten, but the tenth one seems so trite after this. I may in the future do some more of these but for now I'll be moving onto something else.


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