Happy Birthday Ben.
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: The Tao of Ben
To my husband, on the occasion of his 50th birthday.

Looking back, it seems completely appropriate that I met you just as you were turning 42 – just as you were about to become the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. That certainly is what you are to me.

A year later, I took you to dinner on your 43rd birthday. I remember our conversation that night very clearly, because over dinner you told me how you’d considered donating sperm just so you could have some offspring somewhere in the world. I told you to forget it – before you did that, I said, you should knock me up instead. Once again, we didn’t know what the future held in store for us. We didn’t know how true that was going to turn out to be.

And now here we are at your half-century mark, and the chickens have come home to roost. That is one hell of a lot of changes in eight years. You’ve gone from gay bachelor, as it were, to happy family man. It couldn’t have been an easy transition, but do you know? You made it look easy. You made it look like the part you were born to play. Except I don’t think you’re acting.

I hope we have made it worth your while, the kids and I. I know we’ve brought you a whole wealth of worry and headaches and noise, but I hope the love makes it okay. I hope, when you walk in the door and the boys run up to you and Julia coos and unleashes her smile, that it seems like a good deal. I know it hasn’t been easy. I know that at times you must have been tempted to run off to Central America, or considered going to live in your van. I hope you will always think it’s a good idea to not do those things.

Sometimes you don’t believe me when I tell you what a wonderful husband you are. I’ll say it again, for the record. You are not perfect. God knows I’m not. But I see you giving us everything you have to give, and what more could we ask? I try to do that for you too. And I can tell you that you have brought out the best in me. These past eight years, becoming your wife and the mother of your kids, I’ve grown into a better person than I’ve ever been in my life – a better person than I ever realized I could be. You know it to be true. In this way you have brought good to the world – you took a woman alone and a man alone, and you made happy wife, happy mother, loving husband, loving father. And three children, happy and healthy, loving and loved. You think you’re an underachiever? You’re wrong. Look what you have made. I couldn’t have done this with anyone else. I needed you. I need you. I love you, Ben.

These eight years have been good, but I am really going to enjoy the years to come. All the years I’ve got left, all the good I have to give – those are yours, only for you, forever. I love you. Happy birthday, honey.