Happy Valentine's Day

February 14 was a very hard day for me. There was no school that day, so the kids and I stayed home getting things done. It was quite the stressful day, for a lot of reasons. By the end of it I was tired and grumpy, and no fun to be around at all. I hate days like that. And it certainly wasn't very Valentine-y.

February 15, however, was the Valentine's Day of my dreams. No big romantic date, no fancy getaway, no major gifts, but it was one of the best Valentine's Days I've ever had. I went grocery shopping and bought all kinds of stuff for juicing, still kind of wondering if I was really going to do it. 

And that night, after all the kids went to bed, Jared brought out a giant heart-shaped box of chocolates that had stayed hidden the day before because of how rough the day had been. The two of us sat on the couch watching t.v., and together we ate the entire box of chocolates. 

And February 16, I started juicing. 

While we're on the subject of Valentine's Day, a word about Jared. 

I don't know where I would be in this life without him. I love that man more than I could ever put into words, and I would choose him a million times if I had to go back and do it all over again. 

Jared is a man who had to lose 45 pounds or so just to get into the military. And he did it. And he went to basic training and had the tar kicked out of him, and became an exercising machine. It still isn't his favorite thing in the world, but when you have a job that comes with weight limits, you figure out a thing or two. He has become a runner. He's not a super buff athlete or anything, and he always just barely makes weight when he has to weigh in. He struggles with food. Definitely not to the degree that I do, but it's a challenge for him, too. 

As I have mentioned before, weight has been my issue of a lifetime. It has literally been with me my entire life. I was not a slender bride, by any stretch of the imagination. For the last almost 14 years, Jared has been by my side--when I've been smaller, when I've been bigger--and now, at the very worst I have ever been, EVER, he treats me no different than he ever has. There have been times when I have been in such despair over my weight, when I've convinced myself that I don't deserve him to love me, so he must not. And every single time, he unknowingly does something that wipes away any doubt in my mind that he loves me just as much now as when I was much smaller. I don't know how he does it, honestly. He has never, ever said anything to me about what I was eating, or how much I was eating, or that I should work on losing weight, or that I should stop pulling my hair back all tight--he loves me the same, always. 

I am so grateful for that. I think it would crush me if he were to even hint that I'm harder to love when I'm fat. All he does is support me, stand by me, and treat me the same. He doesn't try to convince me why I should do this or that, he just lets me do what I'm going to do. And I really believe that because he is that way, he has allowed me to do this for myself. I may not have gone this far downhill if he had said something to me, but I would be working on it for all the wrong reasons. I really love that I can be on this journey for all the right reasons, without the strain of having to wonder if he would love me less if I struggled more. 

I am truly blessed.