How I knew.

So, I originally was going to write an open letter to the Husband, thanking him for enduring the many levels of my dorkiness. And then, of course, I realized that the Husband doesn't read my blog...oh, he has good intentions and if I tell him to do it, he'll usually pop by, but it's not high on his list of things to read on the Internet.

So then I started thinking about how much and how varied the levels of my dorkiness are that he puts up with and I realized that, it was his capacity to endure and to understand my dorkiness that allowed me to know that he was the man I was going to choose to spend the rest of my life with. The Husband actually asked on of his four roommates at the time, how he knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his (then) fiancee. And to this his roommate respond, "Dude. I don't know. She put up with my crap." So when the Husband proposed and I asked him if he was sure that he really wanted to marry me, he said, "Well. You put up with my crap." (Behold, the romance of the Husband!)

The truth is that, and this is (part of) my own personal marriage philosophy, we put up with each other's crap. There is currently, in our apartment 800 feet of army green paracord. Why? Do we scale mountains? Nope. Jump out of perfectly good airplanes? Nope. Boating? Nope, not a bit of it. We're home bodies mainly. But the Husband decided that part of being a good husband was being able to tie a whole mother-load of knots. And ordinary, manageable lengths of rope just weren't good enough. He's currently researching the kind of felling axe to buy. Why? Do we live deep in the woods? Nope, suburban hell. Do we live in a house with a chunk of property to maintain? Nope, apartment on the third floor. Is he planning to build an arc to save us from certain doom? Nope. He just wants one. Thinks it's a practical tool to have around. Okay.

It's funny. Well, I hope it's funny to other people because frankly, I have to shut myself in the bathroom and have a good laugh about it so as not to make him feel neurotic. But in truth, I'm just as odd, just as illogical. I have, at last count, four copies of all of Jane Austen's novels. I know. It's excessive. I really only neeeed three copies. I KNOW! I am a dork! No one needs more than one copy of any book at any given time! I couldn't help myself! I also have four different translations of Beowulf and I think four different printings of Lord of the Rings. What? I never claimed to be normal, there was no pretense, no liiiie from the beginning. I admit upfront, I am neurotic and a card-carrying member of geekdom.

In addition to the book "thing." I have no desire nor ability to decorate whatsoever so our apartment is institutional chic. 85% of my wardrobe is charcoal grey and I have the same design of shoe in 3 different colors and they're the only shoes I wear. I can't leave dirty dishes in the sink because it makes me crazy and I hate clutter so I compulsively clear surfaces. It doesn't sound that bad writing it out...of course, I'm giving you the slightly diluted eccentricities because we don't know each other well enough now for the hardcore neuroses. Maybe someday we'll get there, but for now this is all you need to know.

I knew that I loved the Husband and the Husband loved me when we were able to be the worst version of ourselves together and not run away. screaming in terror. needing therapy. or prison time.