That's Why I Married You

Have you ever had a friend who really wasn't your friend, they were your "person"?  One who just gets you in a way that no one else on the planet does?  I have been unbelievably blessed to have a person like this.  She knows my magic and my mistakes, my feisty and my flaws.  This morning I was reminded once again that she is pretty fantastic.  Several years ago she found me a Starbucks in a foreign city when I was so desperate for coffee that I would have traded my first born for a cup.  As she pulled in I exclaimed with glee, "THAT.  That right there is why I married you."  It stuck and became our phrase anytime one of us is exceptionally amazing.   So to my Mississippi...here are just a few of the reasons why I married you:

• You always having the answers I need, like how to make "monkey-away" spray for the imaginary monkeys that are giving my daughter nightmares.  
• You call me Betty McSunshine.  
• You bonded with me over our crazy-ass mothers.
• You get tipsy on one glass of sangria and sing "California Gurls" at the top of your lungs in my car (you sound just like Katy Perry)!
• You married the man who pumps your gas; my heart rests easier knowing that he takes care of you.  And he makes pretty babies...just sayin.
• You aim low and moved when my kid was dying so that I could learn how to rely on my own strength instead of yours.
• You understand that sobbing over a list of items to pack for Europe has absolutely nothing to do with the list of items to pack.
• You made me get the job at the hospital.  
• You don't think I'm weird when I call you up at 11:30 in the morning and say "Goose DIES and Maverick lives happily ever after".  
• You kick my butt and tell me that I need to straighten up and get right with Jesus when I stray too far off the path.  
• You ran to New Orleans with me when I desperately needed to bolt. 
• You never asked what "SO BAD" meant. You just listened and hoped that one day I would shed a little light.  
• You always send me your family schedule (school plays, band performances, doctors appointments, etc.) so I feel like I'm in the loop even though we're a thousand miles apart.  
• You sit on the couch with me while we ignore each other.  

Things will change, babies will grow, houses will be moved, unpacked, boxed up again, and one day those boxes might actually be mine instead of yours.  Miles will be driven listening to Betty's Road Trip Mix and we will teach our children not to sing the bad words.  We will get old and forget each others birthdays and maybe even names.  But I will never, ever forget that I married you first.