The obligatory cheesy Valentine's Day post

This time last year, I was in the Netherlands visiting The Boy.  We'd been seeing each other for almost six months but had been apart for three of those months.  I was trying to figure out how to tell him I loved him; trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd accidentally fallen head over heels with someone who lived hundreds of miles away; hoping against hope that all of the heartache of separation and the expense of travel would be worth it, that he would love me back.

Well, as long-time readers will know, everything worked out just peachy.  He moved back to the UK in September and moved in with me over Christmas.  As we were coming up to Valentine's Day, I started thinking about all the things I love about him.  And, quite apart from him being the funniest, most intelligent, geekiest, cutest person I've ever known, one of the things very near the top of the list was the fact that he puts up with me.  Because I am a bit of a nightmare to live with, frankly...

I'm incorrigibly bossy.  I'll think nothing of sitting on the sofa with T and telling him to get up and fetch something from the kitchen.  I push and pull him into positions that feel comfortable for me (during cuddling - get your minds out of the gutter!), and will brook little argument.  I may ask his opinion about something - from what to watch on TV to where to go on holiday - but we both know that it's me who'll have the final say.   And you know what?  He does it all without complaining.  In fact, he laughs: he actually thinks this is a cute trait of mine.  Lets see if he's still laughing in five years time...

I'm a tad bonkers. Mostly in a nice way, but still, I know I can be a bit too Jess-from-New-Girl at times.  Examples of this include making up a song to sing to our pancakes, making him skip through Nottingham with me, and squealing with delight because he'd bought me a packet of crisps.  I'm over-enthusiastic and hyper and silly at times, and I knew he was a keeper when he told me that, far from just putting up with my crazy, it was one of the reasons he loves me.

However, I'm not always stupidly cheery and Pollyanna-like.  I'm nightmarishly mercurial and can suddenly, and with no warning, become terribly grumpy.  Most often while trying to park my car or while cooking dinner, but sometimes completely randomly, I will become incredibly curt and probably very rude.  I can be very uptight about needing things to be done just so, and I am intolerant of him doing things that I myself do - such as leaving dirty washing lying on the bedroom floor. I guess part of the problem is that I've been living alone for a long time, so I'm used to everything being exactly as I want it to be, and that means I notice the negative more often than the positive.  For example, I detest washing up whereas he doesn't mind it.  So every day before work he washes up, leaving the kitchen nice and tidy for when I come home.  But do I focus on this lovely thing he does, day-in, day-out?  Do I heckers like.  I moan about his inability to put things away in the cupboards. 

Frankly, he is a saint and not only do I love him entirely, but I am thankful every single day that he puts up with my shit.  Although we are incredibly similar in many ways, our key difference is that, while I am so tightly wound I'm constantly in danger of unravelling, he is utterly laid back and chilled out.  I think it's this that makes us work so well, balancing each other out; me driving him on and him calming me down.

So, happy Valentine's Day to T.  If he can keep from killing me when I'm in one of my more difficult moods, may we have many more to come.