Well. Do you? I’m just gonna throw it out there. Get it out of the way. Yes. I am one of those obnoxious people that is star struck, crazy, googly eyed, light up my life in love with my husband. Are you vomiting now? I know, it seems ridiculous that I use the term “soul mate” in complete seriousness, but allow me to give you a quick backstory. Ryan and I met, cheesily enough, at a wedding. His brother married my best friend and we found ourselves bonding over our wedding party duties and who could collect the most empty beer cups. We drank, we danced, and we laughed…a lot. And then that was it. We each went on with our respective lives thousands of miles apart, he in Alaska and me in California.

Eight years later, Ryan came back into my life at a time when I was absolutely broken. I was in a state of sadness so deep that I wasn’t sure if I would ever come out of it. But thanks to a very persistent friend (now turned sister-in-law) and an over-protective mama…I was forced to pick myself up, brush myself off, and pull myself together. They reminded me that there was still light in this world, and that no sadness lasts forever. Ryan was that light. Quite literally, he saved me. Ryan is the type of person that is just good. Honest and hardworking. Kind and compassionate. He is the ultimate protector and is a calm soul who balances out my neurotic personality. He’s one of those humans that, as I said, is just good. There’s no better way to describe it.

Before you roll your eyes, trust me, I also know that no one person is perfect. Marriage is hard. It takes work. A lot of work…and I’m certainly not proclaiming ours is perfect. But the work is worth it when you have two sets of hands working willingly. I drive him crazy because I roll my eyes when he talks about “budgets”, my car is always a disaster, I procrastinate making important phone calls, I’m moody when I don’t eat, and I take up both sinks and ALL (he asked me to capitalize that) the closet space in our house. He drives me crazy because he doesn’t see the clear necessity of vacuum lines, his ‘68 Chevelle gets the whole garage, he forgets his wallet 99% of the time we leave the house, his man colds require the universe to stand still, and he uses my bath towel…every damn time. But. There’s a reason why I packed up and moved to Reno four months after we started dating. Why we bought a house full of furniture before our six month anniversary. Why we said I do and then got pregnant nine weeks later. Because when you know, you just know. We have a lot of lost time to make up for, but we’ve got forever to do it. As far as soul mates go…I think I got a good one.