A Husband By Any Other Name

Normally there are two types of males on this earth; guys, and men.  What is the difference, you ask?  Men like reading wall street and have a portfolio. They discuss politics and usually have a glass of red wine every night.  Guys like to have piggyback races in the middle of Target or make a suggestive arrangement in the produce aisle with two granny smith apples and a cucumber. They like to tinker with things and if they cut themselves during said tinkerings they prefer to use a shop towel and electrical tape to dress the wound instead of the perfectly good first aid kit in the house. Both have their pros and cons and usually males have a combination of both traits, though I would consider my dad and my brother both a couple of guys and my grandpa would most certainly be a man.  Me personally I like the idea of a male having both traits to help balance out my life.  I think my perfect male cocktail would be 30% guy 70% man.   I want someone whom I can depend on to keep our finances in check but understands why I need a pink sock monkey elephant.  I guess what I am leading up to is now that V-day is out of the way, I figured I would take a few moments and talk about my husband.

Nate is close to my ideal mixture, probably 35/65 guy to man. He has an executive desk with a leather chair, he has spreadsheets that can pinpoint exactly how much we spent on any given day of the year (going back about 7 years), and every piece of data we own is neatly filed and (to him) easily accessible. Though as I look over in his office that contains his executive desk and leather chair, I can see a shelving unit that has muscle cars, a dippy bird, a Garfield beanie baby, and a beer stein from his favorite Bavarian restaurant.   I guess the best way to further describe him is to tell a story that would reflect each side of his demeanor.

About a year ago I thought I would be sappy so I took one of our checks and wrote it out to him with "my heart" in the amount and "all my love" in the dollar line.  I then put it on his desk for him to find when he got home.  When he came upon the document professing eternal love he examined it, smiled a little, and then proceeded to take a ink pen and write "VOID" in big capital letters across the entire check.  Now if I were any other woman I probably would have gotten offended by this.  But I knew that was Nate's man way of keeping us safe in case the check got into the wrong hands.  Though how someone would alter "my heart" to look like $1,000,000 is beyond me.  A year later he still has the check sitting right underneath his computer in his office, VOID sign and all. In fact, I almost like it better this way.

On the flip side one Saturday morning I was reading my magazine in the family room when I see Nate walk by in his birthday suit.  He was making his way to the laundry room to get some clothes that had finished drying.  Normally I wouldn't have an issue with him in all his glory but the problem was we have a bank of windows that stretch along an entire wall.  And because I'm a fan of natural light we have drapes but no sheers or window covering of any kind. Granted these were the windows that overlooked our back yard.  However, we have a multi-million dollar house that share our back wall, the house complete with windows and a lot of balconies.  This gave rise to my alarm.   "Nate!", I said. "You can't walk around naked in front of the windows. What if our neighbors see?" To which Nate pauses and replies with all seriousness, "I am not naked. I have socks on." And with that he continues his trek to the laundry room.

Two sides of a very different coin, but for me I wouldn't have it any other way. He's funny and sweet and allows me to decorate the house any way I want.  He is my adventure buddy and my best friend.  He's doting and doesn't hesitate to tell me when I'm being stupid or stubborn (usually this comes from me admitting that I'm sick and need to take care of myself or the gravity of certain injuries- yeah, I'm accident prone). If we have disagreements we talk about it instead of argue. He puts up with my whims knowing they're important to me. And I'm a better person after knowing him. Is he perfect? No, but then I'm not either. Sometimes if I'm upset I literally have to tell him "this is the part where you make me feel better." And why he leaves his trash on top of the kitchen countertops instead of throwing it away (we have a trash can right underneath the sink!) is beyond me.  But those incidents are just cherrios in the great breakfast bowl of life. We're happy and content, and that's enough for me.