Perfect Imperfections
I am thankful to have an incredibly kind and loyal husband who truly loves our girls and me unconditionally. He coaches soccer, cooks healthy and delicious meals nightly, and watching classics with the girls, like Mary Poppins and Annie, is one of his favorite things to do. He has learned to put in a respectable ponytail, has familiarity of both a pirouette and a herkie, and has endured conversations about any number of girly topics that dads just don’t know what to do with. He takes the girls camping with their respective Adventure Princess groups, makes sure that they always have toilet paper in their bathroom, and instills in them the fact that girls can do anything.
As a husband, he’s pretty amazing. Even when my hair hasn’t been washed in days and I have no make-up on, he always seems to think I’m pretty. Every night before bed, he brings me a Yeti filled with cold water, and whenever he sees my phone needs charging, I can find it on the charger. He takes out the trash, plans out road trips in extensive detail, and is always surprising me by doing or fixing something random that I didn’t know needed doing or fixing. He’s an all-around good guy for sure.
As we all know, however, every white knight has something unseen on the surface. And in all honesty, what would there be to make life interesting if imperfections did not exist? What would we ladies talk about with our girlfriends? If not for these nuances, GNOs would be unnecessary and frankly very boring! But ladies, I treasure the girls nights and need them for my soul, so bring on the imperfections!
I think we can all agree on the fact that everyone of us has at least one thing that we could “amend” amount our spouse. They play too much golf, they don’t help with the kids, they think our mom is annoying, they drink too much, they watch too much Sports Center, they spend money on needless junk, they forget our birthday, and the list goes on and on and on. My husband does not match any items on that specific list for which I am immensely grateful. My husband’s super power, bless his heart, is his inability to put shit away. It’s actually quite baffling. Like nothing I’ve seen before.
Before we got married, his mom pulled me aside in a serious moment and said, “When it comes to cleaning, David is handicapped.” These are not necessarily words a blushing bride longs to hear just weeks before her wedding, but alas, I was young and IN LOVE and was sure that his mom was just being dramatic. I mean I knew that his apartment was a disaster, but that was just because he lived alone and didn’t care. There was no way he could possibly cohabitate with ME and keep living like a bachelor! He loved me too much to do that!
We have now been married for 12 years, and I raise my flag and surrender.
It has been 12 years since I was blindsided by this charming disaster. In the beginning, it was somewhat funny. It made me giggle when I came into the room 3 days after folding laundry to see that his socks and underwear were still as I laid them on the dresser. I found it mildly cute that his toothpaste had a home residing in the middle of our vanity – with the cap nowhere in sight. And I playfully rolled my eyes when I stepped into his car only to see that the shoes he had been looking for (for days) were buried in his gym bag from 2 weeks ago. These seemingly benign offenses were just a sweet reminder that he was still that little boy that his Mom spoke of.
It wasn’t until the honeymoon phase wore off that his mom’s words became a constant ringing in my ear. Less of a ringing, and more of a blaring, with flashing lights. Perhaps it was the stress of his start-up job, or maybe the fact that we were expecting our first daughter, then our second, then our third, and then THEY grew to be mini-disasters of their own! It grew from a few manageable piles of clothes and a handful of dirty dishes on the counter to a full-fledged after math of a frat party. It was like Gremlins, and there was no stopping the late night pizza parties! I mean piles of stuff EVERYWHERE! Baskets of clean clothes waiting to be folded for days, dirty clothes sprawled throughout every room of the house, stacks of unopened mail, bowls with applesauce sitting on the table with no spoons in sight, pots and pans washed but still stacked on the counter, sports bags with water bottles from the weekend, hammers and screwdrivers of every size and shape found in multiple rooms of the house, and shoes – shoes – and more shoes – everywhere! And now, I realize that the line is blurred since I’m not quite sure where my husband’s mess ends and my kids’ mess begins!
I have bitched and bitched and bitched, pleading for improvement. Whether it’s his or theirs, I have begged for help with it all. I have wasted countless hours reorganizing the pantry, the office, the garage, the drawers, the closets, you name it. Everytime I do, I am assured that he is a changed man and this will be the last time, but every time, it happens again. Somehow, he doesn’t see the need for my frustration, and most of the time after a rant, I find my phone opened to my “Period Tracker,” typically with a message reading, “3 days until your next period.” AHHHH! IT IS INFURIATING! But low and behold, almost every time – in my fury, I cannot help but laugh, because even I know that there is a very small chance that I’m being slightly irrational. He typically sees me smile and seems proudly justified that the offense was not nearly as bad as what I made it out to be. Every time it happens, I am legitimately pissed, but he weasels out of his side of the fault by bringing my stupid hormones into the equation! Jackass.
In conclusion, I have come to this: I am an intelligent, confident woman, and in no world will I be a wallflower nor will I serve as my husband’s (nor my children’s) personal maid. So, the best I can tell is that I’m simply an optimist. As annoyed as I get, I am just as easily calmed when realize the scope of it all. At the end of the day, I love him. And I love his byproducts, AKA my kids! I can’t stand their messes, and I really would trade that aspect of him (them) ANYDAY, but I would never trade him nor the adorable little people he helped me to create. And if a mess is part of the package, then I guess I just need to change my outlook.
But rest assured, I will never stop bitching to my girlfriends. So raise a glass, and let’s toast to our husbands, who love us despite our CRAZY and whom we love despite their imperfections (even if they did pass them on to our children).
