In my family as I was growing up, we had but a few small traditions. Most of them revolved around birthdays – Dad would take us out on a date (dinner or a movie or both), we’d be excused from chores (hooray!), and we were allowed to pretty much expect everyone else in the family to dote on us, hence the being the Birthday Brat. We were all fairly respectful on our day, minus my youngest sister – she tended to take the brat too far, bless her.

This all plays back through my mind today because, of course, there is a birthday here in my home. My husband is… well… older; I’ll stick to being the one that rubs the number into his face. But being mindful of this bit of tradition that I brought across the ocean with me, I’m doing my best to be a loving little wifey-servant. I’ve tried to pick up even more of the house slack, I’m gonna go make us some lunch in a moment, and I do my best to see if he wants anything anytime I get up to putter around the house. And then I realize… I do most of this day to day, at least, when it comes to the basic courtesy of offering to fix him a coffee or the like when I’m downstairs. *chuckles*

Actually, this sort of minds me of something that we saw on TV this morning – a debate on whether or not relationships should be ‘easy’. I find, after three and a half years of marriage, that my relationship with my husband is strong and pretty much trouble-free. Oh sure, we don’t agree on everything, I’m insane, overemotional, and lost in my own head, and he lives behind a mask of professional blankness, but we still manage to read each other and take care of each other fairly well. Would most people find it easy? Probably not – there’s a lot of fine-tuning to keep our love machine running. But does it seem like it’s a difficult thing? Absolutely not – we value each other beyond what we can imagine the other values us for, and so the little things that lube our lives… they just get done. They get done, ’cause it’s worth it, and that’s about that, methinks.

And as my train of thought is being fragmented to bits by lots of stop-starting (I’m getting some chores done before we ditch the kiddo with her grandparents for the evening), I’m going to wrap it up and scootch. Happy birthday, my darling husband – you’re the bestest and all that jazz, etc. 😉

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