I wasn't broken when we met. I had already mended quite well, thank you very much.
I had fallen many times, and I had picked myself back up.
By the time I met Carlos I had fallen for the last time and had really come into my own as a grown up. I had already set my feet on the path I would travel to where I am now.
Carlos met me on my path, and, after time, we decided we would continue on together.
The first time Carlos asked me out, it was casual. "Hey, maybe we should go get a coffee or something sometime."
"No." I said. Flatly.
"Why not?" He asked, genuinely curious.
"Because I'm a bitch."
And I was. I was a twenty seven year old bartender. I had been around the block too many times. I knew way too many Mexican men who played with white girls for kicks, treating them like trophies. And I had no intention of being a trophy.
How I was supposed to know he was different?
It is a wonder after that first encounter that he ever came near me again, ever gave me the chance to get to know him, ever fell in love with me, with bright sparkly eyes, with hope. He had, has, an innocent kind of hope that someone who has been through all that he has been through should never have been able to hold onto.
But he did come near me. He engaged me in conversation again, months later. He asked questions about my ideas, my thoughts. He thought I was interesting. I thought he was sweet. He challenged me without being threatening, and he pushed me in ways I would not ordinarily put up with.
Our friendship grew into a physical relationship, which quickly led to an exclusive romantic one, and we married about two years after we first met.
We are fast approaching ten years together and when I look back, today, on his birthday, I think it's gone by in a flash.
I feel like I know him so well and like I still have so much to learn.
He never saved me. He didn't carry me through anything. I didn't need him to do anything for me.
And yet he has always been there, right next to me, walking the path with me.
When he first moved in with me, his rent helped me continue on in school full time. When I was considering graduate school, he pushed me to take time, take the loans, follow my passion. When I was pregnant with his child he saw me at my most vulnerable, and loved me anyway. No, more.
He loved me more.
I am unendingly flawed. I still trip over myself through overconfidence and a harshly judgmental nature. I am critical and aggressive, crude and callous.
He is none of those things. He is absent-minded and silly. He is endearing and earnest. He breaks my heart with his joy in small things and his ability to be a fellow toddler with our daughter. He is confident and sure, open minded and open hearted. He is pure and unjaded. He always always tries to put himself in the other person's shoes.
My daughter gets her unbelievable empathy from her father.
No, he never saved me. But he makes me better. Every day. He makes me better.
If I am smarter now than I was before, it is because of him.
If I am a better mom than I could have been, it is because of him.
If I am a stronger tutor, helping students all day every day, it is because of him.
If I am a more available wife, more loving, more sharing, it is because of him.
If I give more on so many levels than I ever thought I could, it is because of him.
If I am a genuinely happier person, if is because of him.
On this day, the day he was born, I realize that my life would be different in so many tiny ways without his ever having been born, so many tiny ways, that my life, my person, my path, would be unrecognizable from who I am, what I am, what it is today.
And I am happier, more full, more complete now than I ever have been before.
I say "if he had never been born," instead of "if we had never found each other," because, I am sure, somehow, some way, we would always have found each other.
So, in the end, maybe he did save me after all.
He saved me from myself.
Happy Birthday, Carlos. I hope someday I have the chance to save you right back.
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