To my husband

Dear the boy,

I wish you could see how awesome you really are. You're one of the smartest, sweetest, and most caring people I've ever met. You sell yourself short just because you aren't quite as outgoing as some of your friends...so you think they must be better, somehow. Or maybe you didn't have the right kind of nurturing for your talents. I think you needed someone to really pay attention to you and encourage you to push yourself. Consequently, you were allowed to just be sorta awesome.

But I see your potential. You have little ideas of awesome all the time. I'm not sure if your ideas are just inherently more awesome, or if it's because you inject a little of yourself into the ideas and that's what makes them so awesome. Either way, I am so proud of you that I could burst.

You're making progress. I know it's been slow, and if it were up to you, things would be a lot different by now. But we both know that we had to take a lot of unexpected side quests first. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't give up some of the experiences we've had for anything. We'll get there...just not always in the way we expect.

I love you, so incredibly much. I hope that you see how awesome you are, too. I'm right behind you, babe, always.

Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.