Bob Ross and Real Romance

I can't sleep so I'm going to post two things I've been thinking about real quick and then try to go back to sleep again.

First of all, I am a nerd. How nerdy you ask? Nerdy nerdy... as in I'm on hold at the Library for Bob Ross's "The Joy of Painting" sort of nerdy. People make fun of him but really, I think they're secretly jealous of a sensitive man with artistic talent and big hair. I've always wanted to pick up oil painting and well, here is me taking action. It may turn out fun, disastrous, or both but either way it'll happen.

Second train of thought, I talk a lot about dating and marriage and love and you hear a wide spectrum of things guys do that are "romantic". As nice as the poetry and flowers and chocolates are, I don't feel like they capture real romance. My old coworker once told me her idea of a romantic evening with her husband would be doing yard work or the laundry together. In those small moments when you're trimming back the shrubbery or sorting darks and whites, you aren't really doing the chores, you're building a home together. Like many a girl I have dreams of what it'll be like to fall in love and what happily ever after will be like. In those dreams though, I've never seen myself gazing across a candlelit table at some suave tuxedo'd man. I see myself dancing in the kitchen with a broom and having my spouse sweep me off my feet literally. I see us having a sock ball battle in the bedroom after a lively laundry folding discussion on the true origin of the sock monster. I envision waking up in the morning to the sound of howling children, looking over at some snoring, grizzled, bed-headed hunk, kissing him softly, and knowing that in spite of all its craziness, our life together is more beautiful than anything I could have created on my own. For now, dear snoring, grizzled, bed-headed hunk, whoever you are, I am going to sleep, to bask in the sweet dreams of someday when you'll show me what real love really is.