Unconditionally

I can’t remember when I stopped trying to change you.  Stopped trying to get you to commit to plans days in advance.  Stopped trying to slow you down.  Stopped trying to get you to fall asleep when I did.  Stopped trying to make you into someone you’re not, someone more like me.

I can’t remember when it happened.

Maybe it was when the weekends became more the less they went according to plan. When I realized that no one dies if the agenda isn’t met.  And whose agenda is it, in the end, anyway?

Maybe it was when I discovered that, if something is important, all I have to do is put it on the calendar and tell you it’s important, and you’ll be there.

Maybe it was when I started budgeting for your speeding tickets instead of expecting you to drive the cars you build for a living any differently than how you build them to drive.

Maybe it was when I discovered that vacations spent racing from one experience to another pack a lifetime’s worth of memories into a few short days, enough to last until we take the next one.

And maybe it’s happened as I’ve searched hotels on the way to hotels, paying for rooms moments before we walk into the lobbies.  I know you will find me a place to lay my head. After all, no hotel can be any worse than the frozen front seat of the old Chevy pickup at 11,000 feet or the garden level room with bars on the window, just down the street from the LA airport. And even if we find one, we will have rested and readied for another day’s adventures together.

Maybe it was when I found the sweet spot in the crook of your arm where you’ll let me fall asleep watching our favorite shows, knowing full well that you will have to re-watch them–at least parts of them–again tomorrow.

Maybe I stopped trying to change you the moment I realized that if I did, if I was successful at making you more like me, you wouldn’t be you.  And I love you.

The truth is, you change me.  You make me better for this world, for our girl, for this life.   All without even trying. 

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With a taste of an earlier piece about sleeping tangled in the weeds, today’s post is a tribute to a 22-year-old love story on the 13th anniversary of our “I do’s.”  It is also the 13th installment of the 2017 Slice of Life Challenge, which is being celebrated in its tenth year, hosted by Two Writing Teachers.