Why My Wife Rocks

Katie gets these headaches sometimes. Occasionally they become migraines. They really suck. 

She probably forgot this already, but I noticed she got them bad and often when we were painting our new apartment. (Reason No. 1,482 why moving blows.) Well, now, because she rocks the socks of anyone in her vicinity, she's in Wilmington, repainting our old place. Reason: It's owned by her parents, which is why we could afford it, and so she wants to show them how grateful she is by helping them repaint it. 

You need to understand how mind-meltingly busy she is right now. She's working 40-plus hours a week at a job that requires her to sit on her butt and design advertisements for people. Many times these people are dumb and ask her to revise, revise, revise until the design, frankly, sucks. I've seen it in action, and it's astounding. 

On top of that, she just busted hump for a week straight, kicking butt to finish all her work for a monthly uber-deadline. On top of THAT, she just found out she has to handle the workload for an employee that's on vacation next week. Yes, one shall do the work of two. 

And yet she's STILL in Wilmington, painting a big-a** apartment all weekend long. Getting headaches. While her husband sits at their new home in Greenville, being a bum. (Actually writing a story that's sort of important and going to grad school orientations and whatnot, but never mind, he's still a bum for not going.) 

And the fumes are giving her headaches again. And she doesn't feel great. Of course she doesn't. She NEVER GETS TO REST. 

I tried to talk her into staying here, saying that her parents would understand, that they know we're appreciative of their help, etcetera etcetera. She's not going to get a weekend at home for the NEXT SIX WEEKS. Life is make-you-insane busy right now. 

Didn't matter. She had none of it. She was going, and that was that. Up shut, bum. And so she's there now, painting away with her parents, at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Ninety-nine percent of girls I know would flake out, saying the headaches were too much, that they were too busy, that the needed to rest. Thing is, Katie totally could, and not even be lying. She really does need to rest. 

Yet she works, works, works, happiest when everyone else she knows is happy first. 

She inspires me, my wife. She does these things for the people she loves without regard for herself. And she does it over and over and over again. That's how you know it's for real. 

People do things for us in life, and for some reason, we forget lots of them. If we're doing something just to prove a point, or just to try to win brownie points, or just to look good—and let's face it, we've all done that at some point, right?—it's not too likely that we're going to keep doing those things once we've received, or not received, whatever it was we hoped to get from said action. 

With Katie, it's not about what she gets. It's about what she gives. 

Over and over and over again.

A hero, that one. 

And she actually agreed to marry me. 

How lucky am I?

(She's totally going to punch me for posting a picture of her. You know how some people are camera whores? She's like a camera nun. Or something. I think that's a pretty terrible analogy, but I also think you get the point. Which is: I'm getting punched.)