My Husband, My Everything
Today I deep cleaned the main level of our house for what is VERY likely the first time since moving in. Riveting topic to post about, right? While I was scrubbing the floors (and at times using an exacto knife blade, thanks Erin) I found myself reflecting on this. I grew up in a house where we did chores and the floors were mopped every single weekend. I actually love doing chores! Mine as a child was dusting and it's still something that I find fulfilling, haha! So why then have I not deep cleaned like this in nearly four years? We moved in when Stetson was two months old, and I was deep in the thick of postpartum depression and anxiety. The easiest thing to let go, whether it was consciously or subconsciously, was my urge to clean the house. Very early into being a mother I let my need to clean go, it actually wasn't even something that registered with me.
But I am not writing to tell you about how you should stop cleaning your house if you have a baby. I am writing what is likely to be the first of many reflections on my husband. I could never reflect on my life without including the man who loves me with everything he has. Who allows me my crazy, laughs at my ridiculousness, supports my wild theories on life and who held me up through the hardest time of my life.
It's so much more than cleaning, but the cleaning is just one way of his love manifesting. I admittedly, have only vacuumed our house maybe three times in the nearly four years we have lived here. But our house has always been vacuumed. My husband, without ever once mentioning it to me, picked up where I had left off. He routinely came home from work or spent his days off cleaning the house. He saw our gap and he filled it, without any agenda, frustration or coaxing.
He never once made me feel bad for my state, for not keeping up with the house or for feeling the way I did. In my lowest moments he was there, caring for our son, encouraging me, letting me cry, telling me he loved me. Many times when he cleaned it gave me a break because not only did he vacuum or dust or whatever, he did it with our son.
I could go on and on. It actually has me in tears recalling this. One of the strangest things of my postpartum experience has been coming out of it and being able to look back on myself in those times. I had no clue. No clue how different I was. Looking back often makes me emotional, often sad for myself then. But today, writing this, my tears are one hundred percent of gratitude.
I am grateful first and foremost to my mother-in-law and father-in-law. After all, my husband wouldn't be here without them. Thank you for raising a man who was man enough to take on the household chores. Who didn't make me feel like less of a wife for not keeping up. Thank you for raising a man who cares, who cares so deeply I can feel it when I look in his eyes. Who loves without restrain and who lives to keep his family and the general public safe. I pray every night that we can raise our boys to be as kind, as solid and as genuine as the men you have raised.
And of course, to my husband. Who still, to this day, has never complained or even mentioned how hard it must have been for him to carry me through that time. Who doesn't even admit it was "a time." Who loves me, everyday, for all of my weird, quirkiness. Who loves our sons, teaches them discipline, compassion and joy.
I'll never know for sure how I got so lucky. I'm just so grateful our souls reconnected - no doubt they know each other from lives passed. You, my husband, are my everything.
- lovefrommaria
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