The first time I met my husband, I had no idea we’d end up together. He was a ridiculous college freshman (sorry honey, but you were), and I think I ended up rolling my eyes at him more than anything else. But things (and people) change and grow, and here we are 14 years after that first meeting, married with a little boy that combines his craziness and my curly hair.

The moments in our relationship when he gave me inklings that he was the one weren’t grand gestures of sweeping romantic love. They were the times he held me up before I had to ask, the times he showed me the man he was at his core, the times he gave something of himself that I didn’t know I needed. They were the times when he just…was who I needed him to be.

The fun and folly of Valentine’s Day is this idea of sweeping gestures, of romance and overthetopness. Which are lovely ideas, and can be fun to be sure. I love flowers and romantic dinners as much as the next girl, and those romantic gestures are a sure-fire way to get a smile on February 14th. But in my heart of hearts, I know true love is more than a box of chocolates or flowers. Showing your true love is done in the mundane…an unprompted grab to hold your hand while walking, or hanging up the photos you forgot you needed hung, or bringing you a soda because you might like it. It’s in the hard choices…compromising on where you live for someone’s career, or determining how to deal with sickness, or making the decision to give up certain things for financial security for the family. It’s in dealing with family and careers and kids and errands and each other. True love is in the everyday thoughtfulness and everyday mindfulness of acknowledging and SEEING your partner. It’s in the ways you help take stress and pain from each other, the ways you lift and support each other, the ways you think of each other in the little things. It’s getting the kind of yogurt he likes best, or in filling the gas tank up before you get home so she doesn’t have to do it on her way to work, or remembering to put the dishes away, or in a million other little ways.

So, to my husband on Valentine’s Day: Thank you for being a guy who wants to do the romantic gestures and takes me to dinner and buys me candy hearts. But thank you more for being the guy who, every.day. makes it a point to think of me. Who does the little and big gestures. Who brings me sodas and takes bedtime duty when I’m about to lose my mind. Who takes care of me when I’m sick and holds my hand when we walk. And who laughs with me, and makes me laugh, every day. Everybody should be as lucky as I am.

One of the earliest things I found on Pinterest  was this fun little makeup display:

I’ve been obsessed with it since then, because I think it would address some of my problems with my makeup (namely, that it either gets buried in my one little drawer to the point that I only every use the two things that are right up front or that it either spreads out all over my limited counter space driving my husband crazy and running the risk of being grabbed by two year old hands).

So, I put it on my 2012 To Do List and went merrily along my way, hoping I’d find some time to get to it during the year, despite my less than crafty tendencies.

THEN.

Last week, N.C. called me downstairs. It was the night before we were going to celebrate his birthday and he asked me if I could come help him with something. I sort of assumed he wanted my input on what he was going to wear, or a restaurant he had found that he wanted me to look at. Instead, as I came into the room, this is what I saw:

Sorry for the offcenter image, it was either that or lay down across my entire counter to get it straight on. I love y’all, but not that much.

That’s right. For HIS birthday, N.C. had made ME a gift. The thing I’ve been wanting for-evah. I was SO touched, and so excited to get it filled (this isn’t quite everything. He did an admirable job of picking out my makeup and applying magnets to them, but he missed a few. It’s fuller now).

I’ve been using it a little over a week now, and I LOVE it. It’s so easy to have all my makeup right there–it’s away from prying toddler hands, but out of the black hole of a drawer. I’m not scrounging for my brushes, or digging digging digging for that one little tiny eyeliner, because BOOM, they’re right there. And, as a bonus, because I can SEE all my makeup, I’m actually using more of my makeup–I’m pulling out the colors I forgot I had, or trying the sparkly stuff I never could find. It’s awesome.

So, yay to checking off a 2012 To-Do item, courtesy of an amazingly thoughtful husband. And even bigger yay to a husband who decided that for his birthday, he wanted to do something nice for me—you can’t win much more than that!

P.S. Logistics: it’s been varnished to try and help with any humidity, but we also have our sink/counter area separate from our shower area. I’m not sure if the paper would hold up great in a humid bathroom over the long term, but the varnish will probably help anything we might face.

A full-time job, a commute, a toddler,a dog, a cat, a freelance business, an upcoming art show, a side business, three blogs, one online store, multiple twitters, facebooks, tumblr, pinterest, etc., etc., etc.

24 hours. Two people.

Something ends up giving, and sadly, what usually gives first is time together. We retreat to our corners, we work weekends, I’m on the computer upstairs, he’s painting in the office downstairs. It’s not always like this, but right now, things are kind of insane in our house, and so we power through with our heads down and grab an hour here, 30 minutes there.

That’s no way to sustain a marriage.

So I got this idea in my head last week–why not take Tuesday off work, take one of my precious precious PTO days, and celebrate my husband’s birthday with a full day, just the two of us? A day of holding hands and talking, a day without wrangling a two year old, a day with no agenda and no goals and no point other than just be together. The kid would be in daycare, so we wouldn’t have to pay for a sitter, and we’d get a full day, just the two of us. I think the last time that happened was our anniversary day in Vegas…last May.

So that’s what we did. We got nine full hours to just hang out together. We went and had a leisurely breakfast. We wandered around some funky little shops. We stopped in a cafe for a pastry and coffee (for N.C.). We went and did a little clothes shopping. We had a long, leisurely lunch complete with mid-afternoon cocktails. We wandered some more. We held hands, and we talked, and we laughed.

It was amazing. It was nothing special, and yet it was one of the best birthday celebrations I’ve ever planned for N.C.

It reminded me so much of our time living in the New York area. We would often spend weekend days just wandering through the city, or through Jersey City where we lived, finding little spots to eat, popping into a new store just because it looked fun to wander through.

We would window shop, letting ourselves wander wherever the urge led us. We spent a lot of our limited disposable income on food, and we’d pop into restaurants where we’d split one dish so we could go to the restaurant across the street and have something there too. Or we’d find a small little bar and linger over a drink or two with an appetizer before heading home to eat our “real” meal.

We were excellent linger-ers (but great tippers, so most places didn’t mind).  Talking for hours over a drink–debating, conspiring, planning, daydreaming. And plenty of silliness and laughing.

Always, always laughing.

Yesterday was like those days in New York. It was a day of the two of us, being silly, talking, conspiring, wandering. lingering, laughing, and just being together. It was a day where we weren’t consumed with bills and deadlines, with work and logistics, with the toddler’s needs and the dog’s needs and the cat’s needs and the needs of any other thing…except the need for the two of us to spend time together. The need to make time with each other more important than anything else. The need to take the time to just be together.

*For any locals–we went to St. Germain’s Cafe for breakfast, St. Tropez Bakery & Bistro for pastry & coffee, and Solace and The Moonlight Lounge for lunch/drinks. All three in Encinitas and all three were astoundingly good.

I’ve had people ask me before what it’s like to be married to an artist. I think what people really mean is “what’s it like to live with someone so creative all the time” but the reality is that every artist (like every person) is probably different. My husband, for example, is definitely not the stereotype of the flaky, flighty, head-in-the-clouds artist. In another life, in fact, my husband probably would have been a scientist of some kind, or maybe an engineer.

That said, he IS creative. He looks at the world in a much different way than I look at the world, and that difference can be astounding in how we approach everything from how to paint the living room to what to have for dinner to how we figure out our budget. His creativity is a wonderful thing, but one that I admit I don’t always have ANY idea what to do with.

There’s no way to really encompass what it’s like to live with every artist. There’s no way to really even encompass what it’s like to live with THIS artist. It’s so many wonderful, frustrating, awesome, bizarre, funny things that just…ARE. But there are some hints I can share. Being married to an artist can be:

• paint flecks in all your sinks
• pens you aren’t allowed to touch
• animals who have learned not to walk on the art
• art supplies in every room in the house
• another trip to Michael’s/Aaron Brothers/Blick
• “one minute while I sketch this idea”
• spending more on paints and paper and other supplies than you spend on clothes
• “hey, can you pose for me real quick?”
• more clothes covered in paint than not
• seeing the point when a person becomes an object when they’re being drawn
• constant explanations of what font is on a menu/sign/billboard/commercial
• more images in the “morgue file” on your computer than there are pictures of your kid
• rewatching title credits on movies to see the animations again
• hours of DVD extras looking at art/storyboards/how-they-did-thats
• “no honey, those are daddy’s paints, not yours”
• doodles on old bills
• hand-drawn cards and gifts (sometimes)
• the most awesome nursery ever

…among other things.

Mostly, being married to an artist, for me, has meant that I’ve had years of learning to look at the world differently. I may never see the details and shades my husband does, but I’ve learned to look for more than just the surface. It’s opened my eyes to see angles and curves and colors and shadows I’d never have looked for on my own. The world looks different when I try to view it the way my husband does…and a new perspective is always a good thing (even if the paint in the sink does drive me nuts).

For filling our home with laughter.

For giving me support.

For pushing me to be my best.

For believing in me.

For offering me a helping hand when I’m at my worst.

For giving me our son.

For loving me.

For being you.

For five years.

For our future.

Happy Anniversary.