I am forty-three years old.
The first twenty of those years were a mess of me hating myself because mommy-no-love-me and all the accompanying issues a boy can have with that shit, shitting on any hint of happiness and so much fucking anger.
The next twenty were spent pulling my head out of my ass, shoving it back up there, pulling it out again, taking stock, moments of sheer joy, growth, love, and, occasionally, happiness.
In the middle of all those decades I buried people I love. I hurt people guilty of nothing more than loving me. I loved people I should have walked away from. I drank more than I should have. I had fleeting moments of happiness.
None of it ever calmed me.
Then, just before I turned forty, I married her.
Her has a name.
You’re right, Pauline.
Just before I turned forty I married The Gorgeous Blonde.
If my life was a movie, she TGB would be my happily ever after.
We never see the happily ever after so let me tell you what happens.
After the protagonist has slain the demons, he rides into the sunset with the princess to a castle on the beach.
Then he bitches about the summer humidity and the fucking bugs. She rolls her eyes and just… lets him bitch.
But, mostly, he wakes up every morning amazed and grateful that he survived to see the end of the movie.
He revels in her laughter. Especially when he is the cause.
She sees things she has seen a thousand times for the first time through his eyes; she sees things she never knew were right there.
They still fight and get angry. They are human, after all. Their best fights are when they close ranks and take on the ugly in the world around them.
Samantha, I have been married to you for four years now. I have never wanted anything more than I want as many more years as this life will afford me with you. Plus, another ten on top of that. Every cheesy cliche in every one of those silly chick flicks that I love brings me back to you.
You make me want to be a better man.
You complete me.
I love you just as you are.
Does this dress make my ass look big?
And so many more syrupy, sentimental craptastic songs and movies all serve to remind me that I am the luckiest man in the world.
I got my fairytale.
