My ode to you, sweet love

In honor of that lovey dovey, ooey gooey holiday that is right around the corner, I thought I'd write a little entry dedicated to the one I love.

"If nothing lasts forever, please be my nothing" -unknown

I was seven years old when I laid eyes on this boy. Vanilla blonde hair, chocolate chip eyes and those tootsie roll lips. He sounds too yummy to be true, right? Okay I'm trying to keep with the Valentines Day theme here, but truly it's a pretty accurate description. We started a friendship when we were sixteen years of age. Growing up in the same neighborhood for four years we had so much as exchanged a look maybe once or twice. We were so different with nothing in common to the naked eye, that was until we turned sixteen. Sixteen was Vlad's favorite number "twice as nice as Kobe" he'd say (Kobe Bryant used to be number 8 for the Lakers and Vlad has been his die hard fan since he was about 8 years old) and even though I never had a favorite number, sixteen has now become my favorite too. At the age of sixteen I was blessed enough to meet the man that I dared never to dream up. Our friendship was just that, we became friends in the summer of 2003 with no hidden agendas or motives for us to become anything more than that. We talked and enjoyed each others' company and I found myself at ease with him. That winter during the annual Sunriver trip, I somehow ended up at his family's lodge, and we started talking one evening and didn't stop until the sun came up the next morning. I remember it like it was yesterday. Though the vision of us being so young is fading, the feelings still make those butterflies come alive. Come January, we were talking every day via MSN instant messaging, remember that?! Then it all kind of went fast from there, Vlad drank some brave juice in order to muster up the guts to tell me he had a thing for me, I was too scared to reply so I played Mandy Moore's "I wanna be with you" into the phone to which Vlad replied "What??? I didn't understand a thing she said" oh youth.  We  had our first official date on January 6th (this is a guesstimate, neither one of us remember the exact day, we calculated in accordance of other events that took place that year and came up with January 6th and that is how we celebrate it every year) it was the crazy ice storm that we'll never forget. Everything was frozen like we'd never seen before. Yet Vlad still drove out to see me and we took a walk together through the roads void of any cars and held hands for the first time on the corner of my neighborhood street, which is where he proposed to me 2 years later on our anniversary. We got married in 2006 and my head has not stopped spinning from the way he makes me feel every time I see his face. He has a very humble, conservative nature about him and I'm pretty much the opposite, yet he has allowed me to discover myself, whichever way that may be without changing who we are as a couple. He's not one of those guys that asks me to have my hair a certain color or length, or has me apply my make up like so and dress like that.That's so foreign for me to hear! He always has the exact same answer when I bring up a crazy idea; "Will it make you happy?" he asks. "because if it will, you know I'm all for it baby." He gives me massages, reads books with me and camps out with me in chair and blanket tents on the living room floor. He takes me seriously and listens to me like I'm the most important person on earth. He lets me sleep in while he cleans the kitchen and makes me breakfast. He invests time in me and has patience beyond measure. He's wise in his words and isn't quick to jump without thinking things through. He's my logic when I forget where mine is at. He always reassures me that it'll be ok, and somehow it always is. We still say I love you about 20 times a day, we hold hands at every chance we get. We make out at the movies and have the best time together always. He is my best friend, truly. I miss him when he's just at home and I have to run errands for a couple of hours, needless to say that pain is even more so when he's away for work. I'm at a loss for words sometimes for the way he treats me, I don't know why God chose me to be so happy, but I'm grateful that He did. I'm so thankful that I have this piece of sunshine in my life that gifted me two more little suns with rays that brighten the darkest of days.

Sweetheart, I love you. We're still just sixteen at heart.

"Unless it is mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life, love should not be one of them." -unknown