Man Wednesdays: Gratitude

I'd say I'm too shy too post this or that this is too persona, but who am I kidding not to want to make this public in the? Another Man Wednesday post which we'll try to be more regular about just in time for a special day. P.S. I love you too:

Is there something unseemly about posting about someone while guest writing on their blog? Does this fall under conflict of interest or patronage or could I spin it as being similar to writing the foreword of a book? It's probably moot as Chantal may be too humble to post this anyway, but, tomorrow being our anniversary, I wanted to take this week to write of all the things she has brought to my life. Okay, not all things. That would be a novel. Perhaps a choice sampling.

Most relevant to this blog I guess is my raw diet. I own that I would have never had the herewithal to take up such a diet without the support, encouragement and knowledge that she lends me every day. The words "changed my life" are so over-used these days that I want to avoid them and they would fall short anyway. This is a lifestyle change that has changed the body I experience that life through and the brain chemistry that I perceive that life with. It hasn't just changed my health, but my definitions of health itself. She assured me tonight that I could maintain a raw lifestyle without her, but even that I doubt to be true.

Most immediate is tonight. As a surprise anniversary present she bought us box seats for the Washington Shakespeare Company presentation of The Liar. I had taken a class with the WSC mid-winter and the minute I saw the costume designs for The Liar on the wall of our rehearsal hall I had to see it. As I doggedly cajoled Chantal for us to get tickets that she had already purchased I never realised that I was just witnessing her own skills of prevarication. As testament to this skill, she even noticed that the circus was in DC so that she could let hints in that direction "slip" as convincing red herrings. I didn't guess where she was taking me until the theatre was in sight.

But the deepest and most abiding is esteem. (I don't know if this can possibly come out right in something as limited as print.) Seeing every day the person she is and the person she chooses to become, a person that I admire so much, and to know that she chooses to be with me fills me with such pride and self-worth. The day after tomorrow she will be awarded her Master of Arts and in the fall she will be commencing her Doctoral work. I don't know if I tell her enough how proud I am of her.

And that brings me to one final one for today. In many ways she is my inspiration. She succeeds because she works diligently and intelligently. She succeeds because she has the courage to begin. But she also succeeds, to a large degree, because it is her life-long habit to do so. Thank you for all the things, great and small, that you bring to my life every day, thank you for the last for the best five years of my life and thank for the next hundred or so years to come. I love you.