I can’t believe this Valentine’s Day we are going on twenty years together next month!  It seems just like yesterday that I saw you leaning against your supervisor’s cubicle doorway smiling at me.

People talk about Storybook Endings – I find I am still living a Storybook Beginning.  My life’s story is still full of joy, passion, expectations, and adventures – all because of you.

Do you remember that we made a deal not too soon after we were married?  We said, “This is awesome! Let’s never become roommates.  Let’s keep the honeymoon going.  Let’s never take one another for granted.  It doesn’t matter what others do, let’s protect us!”

In 19 years 11 months, 2 days, and 20 plus hours, you have done an amazing job of keeping your word.  Anytime we began to drift, we’d stop and say, “What is going on here and why?”  Then you’d help us correct that wrong pathway and keep us going straight on the Storybook Pathway.

You have given me the precious gift of realizing that True Love is not a lie, not a fairy tale, not a wild dream.  True Love is reality, in you.

How could I have known that evening when you were on your knee asking me to marry you, that my answer was going to be the best decision I ever made?  That it would change my life in ways no one could have told me existed?  I didn’t even know my world was grey until you burst through bringing that sunshine of love that warms me, inside and out.

In our 19 years 11 months, 2 days, and 20 plus hours together, you’ve been there for me in every way possible.  You are the only person on this earth who knows me at all.  You know me.  What a gift because in knowing me, you still love me!  Wow.

When I need hope and inspiration, you are there holding my hand and sharing wisdom.  You are always strong when I am not.  You taught me how powerful passion from True Love is.   I love that we are still learning and growing in that area!  You are my shelter in every storm ever faced.  And what an anchor you’ve been.  You did help mend my broken heart so that my real life started with you.

It is hard to believe that 20 years ago at this time, we were heading to a Valentine’s Day banquet, secretly engaged a month after we met.  And two and a half weeks later, we were married.  And in all this time, your armor has never tarnished.  The more I know you, the better you are.  You are the epitome of the word honor.  You are dominant but you let me be me.  You are giving, loving, romantic, easy to fight with because you don’t fight fair, and you are so gifted at being my friend, lover, and life’s mate.

You love me so boldly and unconditionally.  It still surprises me sometimes.  Your love is steadfast and sure, that ONE thing I can count on in this world (aside from God’s love).  YOU love me.  You LOVE me! You love ME!

And the very best part of that love is that after 19 years 11 months, 2 days, and 20 plus hours together, you still love me as madly, passionately and completely as you did in the beginning.  No.  More so, actually.

You still take my breath away with your love.  Sometimes I come across the notes and cards we first shared with one another when we were working in the same office.  I read the things you wrote to me and am amazed how true everything you said to me was and has come to pass.

You said if I hooked myself up with you, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t overcome, anywhere we couldn’t go, nothing that we wanted to accomplish that we couldn’t as long as we were together.

I truly am still happier than I’ve ever been in my life.  You became the truth of what I’d only dreamed about.

Baby, thank you for these years, each better than the last.  Thank you for 20 years of unconditional love, sometimes warm and fuzzy, mostly insanely hot and passionate.

Thank you for adventures, oceans, giving me the first ever flowers from a man, making me the best fudge, not murdering my snowmen, making me feel precious and valuable, seashells, laughter, joy, passion, and all my wishes coming true in you.  You are so much better than anything I could have dreamed up.

There is no ending in a True Love Story.  It just gets better and better because you truly are the best thing that ever happened to me.

Here is to The Beginning of our next twenty years.

Je te veux, j’ai besoin de toi, Je t’aime.
Chaque fois que vous voulez.  Partout o vous voulez.