Romance is in the Heart of the Beholder

A friend of mine posed the question on Facebook, “What to get the hubby for Valentine’s Day?” My answer was somewhat less then romantic, but what passes for romantic these days is light years away from what it was when I met my husband sixteen years ago. We met cute at the hotel where he was working and I was staying (for weeks on end) as a business traveler. I thought he was too young for me (though he was actually four years older than me), we had an eight-hour long first date, we were engaged six weeks later and married two years later.

            Those two years were spent sending hundreds of e-mails over the distance that divided us while he finished college three hours away. I printed and saved every one of them, using some in a scrapbook I created for him as a wedding gift. We burned up the phone lines, visited as time and our school and work schedules allowed. Weekend visits found us spending whole days in bed, watching endless movies or taking day hikes and trips. I painstakingly drew a card for our one-year anniversary and spent an insane amount of time laboring over a hand-drawn replica of the first card he ever gave me to use as the cover of our wedding program. He was equally as adept at sweeping, romantic gestures—one time spending hours writing love notes on hundreds of mini Post-It notes and sticking them all over our obscenely-large entertainment center for me to find when I came home from work and having bouquets of flowers delivered to me at each of my wedding showers.

            Over the years some of those more obvious and elaborate gestures faded away, with barely a notice or a whimper. The occasional grand gesture, though fewer and farther between, seemed well worth the wait—especially while trying to wrangle with two little ones at home.

            Then, as the love affair of two settled into a family life of four, grand gestures were replaced by things that showed we were standing the test of time. He might spend a long, painful day rototilling the hardest ground ever to exist, so I could have the flower garden I wanted. I might spend hours scouring help wanted ads for him, trying to help him find a job he really loved after the school he was working at closed.

So when he jokes about the weird things I say I want for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day—like a stack full of magazines and the time to read them or a fountain soda brought home to surprise me after a really long and cranky day—I can only smile. To me that means he knows who I really am, what really makes me happy and what helps me get through the day. Romance evolves over time. I know he always has my back (and my favorite cupcakes) and that is the most romantic thing I can think of.