I keep trying to get under Steve’s skin by widening my eyes and saying things like TWENTY-FIVE and QUARTER-CENTURY and REAL ADULTHOOD BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA and it’s totally not working and internet? this is making me mad! How am I supposed to milk this when he’s so well-adjusted and unconcerned about his rapid descent into old(er) age??

Our last conversation went like this:

Me: So are you going to have a quarter-life crisis now?
Steve: What’s that?
Me: You know, where you freak out about how you’re already 25 and haven’t done what you wanted to do by now and omg you’re a MAN now and what are you doing with your life and where is all of this going??
Steve: What? That exists? Where do you come up with these things?
Me: Yes!  It totally exists! There’s even a book!
Steve: Well no…I’ve done all the things I’ve wanted to and then some.
Me: Seriously? No worries?
Steve: Nope, my life is awesome, why would I be scared of what’s next?

And you know what? His life is pretty freakin awesome and it’s that way because he consistently puts in the work to make it so. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the  instant-gratification-obsessed / everything-is-disposable label that my generation has been (probably quite deservedly) slapped with. I’ve realized that one of the things that I love so dearly about Steve is how much he eschews those values. To Steve, anything worth having is worth working for – period. When the going gets tough, he digs in his heels and fights – it wouldn’t even occur to him to walk away. (Seriously, he pulled a tendon in like mile SIX of the Marine Corps Marathon and still ran/limped/hopped across the finish line)(then he had to do physical therapy for months before he could run again)(sometimes this characteristic works against him).

Given this whole marriage adventure we’re about to embark on, we’ve been talking a lot about our relationship – what kinds of vows we’d like to make, the values that will ground our marriage & family, and a lot of it ends up being about how we’ll deal with the great unknowable. And for me, the great unknowable boils down to this: we are so solid and so happy – ridiculous, can’t stop smiling, miss you when you leave for work omg gag me happy – but we’re both also realists and know it won’t always be so. We’ve hit a few rough patches on our way here and we’ll hit many more over the next decades of loving each other. As someone who likes both to plan and to have control (ahem, just a bit), the whole jumping-in-with-both-feet-no-guarantees side of lifelong commitment terrifies me.

But Steve? Not so much. His faith in our ability to weather anything has been unwavering. When I start fretting and what-ifing he says this: I am always going to love you and what we have is once-in-a-lifetime and it is sacred and it is lucky and it will be work sometimes, of course it will be work, but what good thing isn’t? And we will work as hard as necessary through those times because it will always, always be worth it. We have fought for each other before and we will choose to fight for each other as many times as we have to.

Because I believe in you and you believe in me.

And that? That has gone a long way towards assuaging my fears. Because that? Well that right there is the mark of a damn good man.

I’ve realized my needling falls on deaf ears because Steve has been a man for a long while now – because he’s already well-versed in figuring out what he really wants and making it happen, because he communicates his needs and works hard to balance all the loves in his life, because he’s already grown into himself and found his strengths and strengthened his weaknesses. Because he sees this as a lifelong process and will continue to do so.

Steve, If I am lucky enough to wander this world with only your hand in mine, it will be enough.

Happy Birthday Love. xoxo.

• April 11th, 2009
• favorites, love, steve, with music
• 4 comments
• #