love{24}: the comfortable [honest] kind of love

A husband is guy who tells you

when you've got on too much lipstick

and helps you with your girdle

when your hips get stuck.

-Ogden Nash

There is nothing like comfortable honesty in a relationship.

It's really a beautiful thing.

Sometimes annoying, but always worthwhile.

Let me offer a few examples of this wonderful, freeing {real} love:

The other morning I cooked breakfast in my nightgown. I was making G a breakfast sandwich and the bacon grease was landing on my skin like sparks, so I slipped an old sweatshirt over the nightgown and as I served Gary his warm breakfast platter, he non-chalantly told me to "go change, your outfit. It reminds me of something my Mom would wear." Your welcome, honey.

Sharing a bathroom. I know some couples who appear to "share" a bathroom when really one of them does all of their bathroom related work in the spare. G and I really share a bathroom. Our bedtime bathroom ritual  consists of dancing around the bathroom, bobbing and weaving, ducking in and out of each other's wake...brushing, washing, gargling, flossing, moisturizing, peeing, singing, etc.

I also never shut the door when I'm in the bathroom at home (NEVER. Well, unless we have company). Yep, you get the picture. We've had several conversations that to {most} couples would be too close for comfort. I can't remember it ever being any different...

Gary still snuggles me on the couch after pointing out the drool/spit-up/carrots/squash/milk splatters all over my shoulders, chest, face and in my hair (I say it just gives me extra flavor).

Gary shaved my legs for me when I was too pregnant to see what the heck I was doing. He also propelled me out of bed when I was up peeing for the 20th time and was too exhausted, prego/fat to heave my big ol' belly up and out of the sack. He watched (!!?) me get my epidural  (and proclaimed to me in a quivering voice "babe, the needle's not even that big..."), and not too much later than that, held one of my legs back, and several moments after THAT, cut the umbilical cord (whew!).

Gary is so comfortable around me that he no longer tells me when I have food on my face (pretty much anytime I put anything in my mouth). He likes to just get used to it, and let whatever it may be DRY, on my face, until someone else (ie the waiter, a friend, stranger, cashier) points it out. And then smile, point and laugh.

Gary buys me "unmentionables" at the store. True story.

He forgives me when I wear the same sweats for the third day in a row, get crumbs in the sheets, forget to shave my armpits and even when I have a more-than-usual gassy night. HA.

...and I love him when his face is prickly, his hair is shaggy, he's worn the SAME ratty shirt all week, he farts (for the fifth time) under the covers, smells like sweat and exhaust/diesel, and has had a dinner laden with garlic and onions...

These are the things that make our love honest, cozy, fun,

and real.

And I can't imagine having it any other way.

Love is what enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.

-Unknown