Butterflies..

I’ve been with my husband for 6 years. We both came from pretty heinous relationships that left us battered and bruised in our own unique and awful ways. He bounced back a lot quicker than me. The better part of a decade with him, and I still doubt. Doubt. All the doubt. All. The. Time. 

I don’t doubt him. He’s solid. He’s adorable. He’s funny. He’s smart. He’s charming. He can get pretty much anything he wants. 

Then there’s me. Why. Why me. I’m a broken taped-up mess of a shell of a human. I am still attempting to put back together the pieces of my shattered existence. Yet he claims I give him butterflies. 

Maybe before. I was more carefree, even in spite of the hell my life had become. I smiled. I laughed. I brushed it off and carried on. I was cute and spunky and held my shit together with the finest bandaids a girl could find. 

Not now. I feel like I break more with each passing year. I’m repugnant in comparison. I am anxious and worry, I don’t sleep, I am in constant fear of something going wrong, I express my concerns (not complain, I don’t do that). I have a medial issue that has made me a tired, emotional, anxious, dry skinned, iron deficient blob. How fucking hot. And score for him. 

Before, it used to be all mushy phone calls, Cologne sprayed tshirts to sleep in when he is gone, hundreds of texts just to say I love you, the insane need to talk and hear my voice, “kiss me now” moments, stolen looks, secret tongue meanings (don’t be gross) and hundreds of other things that made us, us. 

And now we are partners in this life business. Tv is watched in bed with a quick “good night” thrown in without taking an eye off the screen, texts are shorter and not fun, I love you’s are in short supply (and more often than not, I feel are just something to say out of routine), kisses are next to non-existent, conversations revolve around work and kids and groceries and bills…. 

So what happens when the butterflies die? When the thing that made us, us, becomes nothing but a distant memory and something that requires too much work with all the other shit we have going on? What happens when the flitty tummy feelings that made this feel special and exciting just turns to a regular complacency and routine? 

We have a lot going on, I’m not going to lie… But I’m not old and dead yet.. I don’t want to give up on the butterflies. One, because it’s the happiest I’ve ever been. And two, because once they’re gone, the facade will erase and all that will remain is my broken shell. And who the hell wants that? 

Fucking butterflies.