Since I’ve been home, The Donor and I have really only had a few hours together, and those were spent mostly recouping from the most impressive, thorough hangover the world has ever known, or ever will know. One for the books, that was. He shuffled off to work the day after I came home, and though we’ve slammed a mug of coffee together here and there, we haven’t really been able to catch up. I mean, he’s been reduced to subscribing to my blog, and, like, almost no one does that.

Tuesday night, he didn’t come home from work until half past way too late to be working and last night he went out with his buddy to “keep him from gambling too much at the casino“, which you know and I know and he knows means oogling dancing girls WAY out of his league, but I digress. We’ll let him have his little story.

Except that this post is going to his inbox as soon as I hit publish. Fuck me.

Tonight, however, he was getting off work early (read: quarter til eleven) and I thought I’d give him a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to come home to. You know, since I sorta owe him and shit. And so, I made a little cheese and cracker plate (on the good app plates, which normally hold fingerpaints) (and I actually sliced them, I didn’t just buy the bag of the pre-sliced ones that always have that stuff in them that looks like cocaine but does not in any way work like cocaine) (not that I’d know, just an observation)

And since we had all this fine, savory, smokey cheese with the Good Crackers and all, I figured we’d ought to have a little sweet to go with it, and everyone knows that chocolate is an excellent aphrodisiac.

I am so classy, what can I say? And then I lit the one and only remaining candle we own and slipped into something a little more comfortable.

But by then I had become so overcome by my own mad ambiance-making skilz that I had to get started without him.

Sorry baby. Next time, I’ll wait for you.

Exactly one year ago today….

See this?

This is what I am doing tomorrow at 6 a.m. or so. With 3 kids. One of which who is under 2.

I think my Happy Meal is missing a few fries.

Our little one week vacation went slightly over schedule. We came, we saw, we stayed. Sometimes it flat out blows my mind how much can change in a year. Here’s to my husband, who had the courage to try. Here’s to my kids, who had the capacity to understand. And here’s to me, who, for the first time in her life, attempted a little thing called forgiveness.

I’m glad we took that road trip. I’m glad we decided to make his Father’s Day present us. I’m glad that I didn’t intend this, or even want this, when I got into that car. It’s been one of the hardest years of my life, this one, more internally than anything else. I don’t know how to forgive, I have no earthly clue how to trust, but I’m learning. Every day, I find out one new thing about myself. This thing, this rebuilding a marriage, has been so much harder than anything I’ve ever had to do before.

But you know what? It’s not impossible, it’s not too hard, and there are days when I think that nothing in this whole world is more worth-while. The speed-bumps are annoying, the pot-holes really, really hurt when I hit them, but the times when the sun is out and the road is open? Those are the happiest times of my life so far.

Would I do it again? I honestly don’t know. But, just once, I did that thing that I was most afraid to do. I took the road less traveled, just like I said on my wedding announcements that I would. And I am really lucky that I did.

I remember stopping at a pretty schwanky hotel in Boise tonight one year ago, the one I couldn’t afford at all but got anyway, figuring we’d just eat mac & cheese for the rest of the month once we got home, throwing the kids in the pool, and calling Gigi to check in. I remember the sound of her voice, and the concern she was trying to mask, and I remember thinking that, for the first time in my adult life, I’d found home. That woman was home. I remember reading my comments that night and seeing Diane’s, and realizing that she, a woman I still have never met in real life, was home, too. That I had real, grown up friends, that I had finally found my spot in Denver, in life, in all of it.

And then I just never came back.

I miss home, I really do. I ache for Denver, for Gigi’s kitchen, for the possibility of taking in a Rockies game with Diane someday, for Molly and Marge and Aimee and David and Andy and Stephen and all of you in the Mile High Club. But, you know what? This right here, this couch, these pictures, my Mini-Cuisinart; that’s home, too. And that’s just fine by me.

Him: You ironed my cargo pants. Huh.

Me: Of course I did. If I’m going to iron, I’m going to iron everything.

Him: You didn’t iron my t-shirts.

Me: No. Really? T-shirts?

Him: You said you iron everything.

Me: Everything people can see. No one sees your t-shirts.

Him: That’s what you think.

Me: Well, everyone that does see them is going to just crumple them up in a ball and throw them on the floor anyway.

Him: All the more reason to have them ironed.

Me: Maybe you could work that into your fee structure.

(Awkward pause)

Me: $1 a ride and ironing. That’s a fair charge, wouldn’t you say?

Him: Honey, the only person I pay for sex is you.

Me: Game, set, match.

Today is the last day of Jeremy’s series on What Women Think. About Dads. It’s been really interesting hearing the points of view of 4 other women, all of us having different backrounds and stories. You can read the whole thing here. The comments are really good, too. Lots of great guys came out to read and discuss, and even the sore spots were discussed, not argued, you know? It was truly a learning experience.

Yesterday’s topic was Pet Peeves, and I think this one was the most interesting. All 5 of us women had varying opinions on everything; sex, marriage, looks. But the Pet Peeves one? 5 totally different answers. Five controversial answers. Why? Because everyone is annoying in their own, special, unique way.

I felt kind of guilty about what I said about The Donor. I accidentally made him sound like an ass. That’s what I get for trying to be funny. As penance, I would like to share with you the things, and I’m just guessing here, that I do that make him want to take a bat to my head on a regularish basis. To prove that no one’s perfect. To prove that I know I am just as much an asshole a perfectly, beautifully flawed person as him.

I totally would love it if you did a list on your blog, a list of things you do that are just, well, stupid. And annoying. And that make loving you just a little hard. Things your spouse would call Pet Peeves.

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