Childhoodtake2!

After all these years
I still love you.
I still want you to be the last person I see at night,
the first I see in the morning.
I still love holding your hand, it makes me feel so close to you.
You still hug me so hard you put all the broken pieces back together.

After all these years
I still see the joy in you,
the one that I fell in love with
the one that made us so easy
the one that was always so natural to you
the one I am afraid I turned off.
It's still there, it's still who you are.

After all these years
I still remember every moment of us.
I still remember how gleeful I was when I met you.
I still hold on to that warmth between us, how we always just fit.
I still remember every moment of us.

After all these years
I still won't let you or us take us for granted.
I won't let us slip away
I won't let us just pretend we don't have to work at it
I won't just roll over and go to sleep without a smooch.
I won't put my head down and not fight for love.
And neither will you.

After all these years
you still fight
for us, for what we mean, for who we really are.
You remind me that we are worth it, we have each other and we are not letting go.
I bring the love, you bring the commitment so we cannot go wrong.

After all these years
it's different.
It sometimes works and sometimes it is work.
Because everything is different and most different is that it isn't easy anymore is it?
Because we added so much and sometimes that means we had to take so much away.
Like long walks and coffee dates and grocery dates and marathon movie days and Mia time and so many snuggles and time on the couch and time just us.
Easy had to go away for us to build what we wanted.
But, that doesn't mean it's impossible.
And as they get older and things get more complicated, some things just get easier.
They need less physical and more attention just like we do.

After all these years,
I still love seeing you happy.
I know it's harder to find happy but I love seeing that easy smile come to your face.
I love your gorgeous eyes and I think I fell harder for them now that I see them on our kids.
They remind me how gorgeous you are.
They remind me of your young, happy, joyful, easy side.
They will soon remind you too.

After all these years,
I still worry about most things.
Money and jobs and careers and raising good people and boredom and losing who we are and the house and all we have going on.
You still remind me that somehow it all works out.
You still remind me that we can take it on, no matter what it is.

After all these years,
we still find it incredibly easy to love love love each other during the good and bad times
and remember that the work is in the boring.
Remember that while we are shuffling kids around and mowing lawns and paying bills and making lunches and cleaning up and step and repeating our day, there is a couple here that needs small reminders of love.
So, after all these years, I am finally seeing my role in that and not expecting you to do it all.

After all these years, I have finally figured out what partnership means.
Because it's not 50/50.
It's showing up, always.
And we show up, and when we don't, I remind us that we need to.
There is lots to do for both of us and you never complain about your part and so I am learning that with the heavy load comes humble doing.
It's all about showing up.

After all these years,
I still think about what and who I would be if I didn't meet you, if you didn't take that chance.
I still think of what it would look like without you and I do not like that picture.
Because I am always better with you.
I am a better friend, mom, person with you.
You are my balance, my heart, my joy.

After all these years
I think saying yes to you was the best decision I made.