Just Write: Live-in comedian

Poor guy didn't realize, when he married me, what wedding a writer would entail.  How I delight in the telling of everyday stories, of the people I love, and now he is the closest to me, skin to skin.  I grew up the daughter of a preacher and it just came with the territory, being inserted into his sermons from time to time.  I was too young to really care, but my sis, I think she felt each mention of her name in a sermon as the gradual loss of shreds of dignity.  The kind of dignity that teenagers cling to with cheeks flushed.  And I wonder, sometimes, if that's what Ricardo feels.  

This makes me pause.  I'm treading on new territory. 

You see, I have stories inside - great stories - and I burn to tell them.  Of my live-in comedian, the man who feeds off my silliness, or perhaps I feed off his, depending on the day.  The man whose positive outlook on life's challenges reminds me often of my Dad, the preacher.  His mannerisms, too.  Of the companion who shows me in his cheerful way what partnership looks like, how he's got my back on the littlest things, the ones that add up to a heap of importance.  Stories of all those moments laced across four months of our not-so-fairytale beginning, when his chuckle, his mischievous eyes, his overly dramatic facial expressions, his playful movements, lit a fire of laughter in my belly and melted my heart.  

And it's more difficult than I thought, to navigate this territory as a married writer, choosing carefully which stories to tell.  This story doesn't only concern me anymore.  It's Our story.  His story, my story, fused together in a beautiful, messy telling; and this, it turns out, is a learning curve.  I want to honor Us in the telling.  

If his cheeks are ever flushed at the reading of my stories, I want it to be from laughter, from pleasure, from sheer emotion of our shared journey, not from embarrassment.  But, oh, what a gift it is to have a live-in comedian, best friend, partner and lover, all rolled up in one perfectly imperfect man. 

"No mas fotos, por favor."

*This post is linked up with a Tuesday free-writing exercise, Just Write