I don’t write love letters to my husband nearly as often as I did when we were dating.

I don’t keep up with the scrapbook I began crafting diligently after our first few dates. In fact, I don’t even know where it is.

Sure, before I leave for work in the morning, if I remember I’ll write an “I love you” on a sheet of paper and leave it on the kitchen counter for him to find. Or I’ll send him a quick text to the same effect…

But, as surprising as this is to me, I can’t remember the last time I actually took the time to put my love for him into words… complete sentences dedicated to this man who means just about everything to me.

I guess at some point, it becomes a logistics thing. It would be kind of silly, given that most of my free time is spent with him, to take pen to paper during said free time and go into great detail about the depth and breadth of my love. Sometimes it’s just easier to take his hand and give it a squeeze. Or to simply speak the words, “I love you.”

The truth of the matter is, I spend so much time in my own mind thinking about just how lucky I am to have him, that if those thoughts alone could string themselves together on a piece of paper, they would produce a love letter that had no end.

I fell in love with a man who genuinely enjoys my company. A man who understands me (or at least tries to), even when I don’t. A man who, when he says something that makes me laugh, tries to follow it up with something even funnier, just to keep me laughing. A man who, while not particularly entrepreneurial, wholeheartedly supports my business ventures, encouraging me and acting as my sounding board - even if it means sharing me with my tech gadgets.

He values the institution of marriage. He understands the importance I place on my relationship with my family. He shares my passion for animals, and would go to the ends of the earth for our doggies. He has been known to get teary-eyed when witnessing an injustice done to an animal.

Lest you think I am trying to pass my husband off as a perfect specimen, I will concede that he does do things that drive me absolutely crazy. Like taking off his shoes as soon as he comes in the house - and leaving them there for me to trip over. That’s fun.

Or lining the window sills with newspapers when it’s about to rain so the wood won’t rot. He has explained his reasoning time and time again, but it’s still leaves me shaking my head. Just shut the windows!

Or the fact that in our 5 years of living together, he has probably changed the toilet paper roll a grand total of one time. I honestly think he believes it changes itself.

There are days when I just can’t imagine why he’d ever put up with me. There are days when I can’t imagine why I ever put up with him.

And yet, as horribly clichéd as this is, there’s nothing that makes me happier than seeing him next to me each night when I go to sleep and each morning when I wake up.

When I hear the ring tone I set up for him coming from my cell phone, I still get excited.

And when I hear the garage door open and his car pull in, I instinctively jump up to give him a great big hug when he walks through the door.

This isn’t the same type of love letter I would have written to him within those first few months of dating. It isn’t dancing with sacchariny sweet attempts at prose.

Our love then, while strong and powerful, didn’t yet have the depth, intimacy and familiarity that only time can bring.

This is a love letter that comes from seeing a man almost every day for the past 5 years, day in and day out, at his best, at his worst. At times, in the most unromantic of positions, like on the toilet (with a new roll of toilet paper thanks to me)…

…And still saying that he is everything I could ever want in a man.

P.S. It’s not our anniversary, this was just on my mind today.