I am a sucker for love stories... Dear John, Love Actually, The Notebook, Safe Haven, You've Got Mail... The list goes on, but that Nicholas Sparks sure must be living in a fairy tale! I wonder if he has a wife and maybe he acts out all of his novels with her? I wonder if she would agree with what I am about to say??
I do not believe in fairy tales. I think that we all can have fairy tale like moments in our lives, but our lives are not all... Running after someone in the airport, stacks of love letters, moments where your eyes meet and a passionate kiss follows, meeting your true love on top of the Empire State Building, or a rowboat caught in a rainstorm under the magnolia trees. I think that my life is so much more then a typical romance movie or novel and, it is not a fairy tale.
At the end of the movie, the lights come on... Reality sets in and life starts again, and as you exit the theater, you usually here women asking their husbands " why don't you ever say those things to me". "Why don't you ever kiss me like that". I am GUILTY of just these things!! Little do they know that the fact that their husband just sat through a chick-flick in public says a lot about how they feel about you...
My husband has never spent months annonomously writing me love e mails and chatting on AOL, and then met me in a garden in NY and gave me one of those sweep me off my feet kind of kisses as strangers passed as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" plays in the background.
He comes home after a hard days work, and sees me all disheveled and gives me a smile and kisses me on the forehead as he takes a clingy 14 month out of my hands so that I can finish dinner.
He has never ran through an airport and met me at the gate just as I am about to board the plain and declared his love for me.
He was there at the birth of both of our boys. Encouraging me, holding my shaking legs and swolen ankles. Getting me a cold rag for my head, and telling me that I am strong. He held my sweaty hand as I gritted my teeth and brought our boys into this world, and he was glad to do it.
He has never gotten us stuck in a old-fashioned rowboat in a rainstorm.
We can't wait to see him. As soon as that white Hermanson work truck pulls down the road, the boys throw everything down that they are doing and run to him. He grabs them. Kisses them. Hugs them and loves them. He comes into a house that is in slight disarea with hockey sticks on the floor, shoes in the door way, and a new finger painting on the fridge and he says white a smile " looks like you all had fun today."
He has never sent me 10 dozen roses.
He gets up at 2 am to help me sooth a teething baby so that I can get some sleep even though he has to be up at 4:30 to go to work.
He has never stood in the middle of a crowd and shouted his love for me while everyone has stopped and stared. Followed by their applause...Well he kind of did that when he proposed :)
He has gone out in the middle of the night for milk when we have ran out. He has driven babies to sleep in the car, he has folded laundry, emptied the dishwasher and vacuumed up cracker crumbs.
He has never said " you had me at hello"
When we fight, he is always fair and kind when I sometimes lose my temper. He never goes to bed until we resolve our issues, and he always kisses me goodnight. He is the voice of reason when I get lost in my own thoughts, and even though we can have arguments that drive a wedge between us, we always fight to find our way back to each other.
We have never met on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentines Day.
He kisses me goodbye every morning, he calls to check on me during the day, and makes silly jokes that only we understand. He lets me put my frigid feet between his legs at night, he gives me the chocolaty bottom part of the Drumstick, and he sleeps with kids feet in his face, and a snoring dog on the floor.
My life is not a fairy tale, and my husband is not a knight on a white horse fighting off a dragon to rescue me... the lights have turned, and our eyes are wide open. My reality is so much more valuable then a romantic fantasy. This is a life that includes hockey practices, dirty dishes, mounds of laundry and special memories that we are going to make together... and we steal small moments that are just ours.
My life does have something that a fairy tale has... a happy ending :)
Awwww--this is great! Fairy tales are fine for inspiration, but a real-life romance beats them any day of the week! It's great that you know this are you live the romance instead of realizing it 50 years down the road.
ReplyDelete