I've posted nothing for a long time but it hasn't been for lack of trying. I've tried time and time again to write about my fiancé but it never comes out right. I lack the talent and the magic to describe how magical she is and how magical our relationship has been. I'm often hindered by crippling self doubt when I write but when it comes to writing about her, and us and the family we've formed, I've been paralyzed.

Writing, like relationships, is often about finding a way in. Our way in, at the beginning, was parenting and pizza but that hasn't worked as a way in for writing about us. I've tried to write it as a modern day fairy tale romance because it is. From sending that first goofy, sweet message about pizza on OkCupid to our first date in Mt Vernon, Illinois on a Wednesday night because we just couldn't wait any longer to neither of us expecting anything serious because we lived two hours away from each other and were both single parents but unable to help ourselves from it becoming serious to meeting each other's boys and falling in love with them also to planning to move in with each other to getting engaged on her 30th birthday without a ring because we just couldn't wait any longer to moving in together sooner than we planned because we just couldn't wait any longer to where we are now navigating the blended family situations and trying to wait to get married so that our wedding can be as magical as our family is.

We are a modern fairy tale but that hasn't worked as a way in for writing about it. Look at the mess I just made of it. That's how it is to try and write about it. I have so much to say about her and about us and it all comes out at once because I can't separate it. Thinking about the way her lips felt on a park bench in Mt Vernon only makes me remember how her lips felt on Christmas which only makes me want to quit writing and go to bed so I can feel her lips against mine in the morning. It all works for me but it doesn't work for my writing.

So I try to just write about how wonderful she is. I try to describe her thoughtfulness, her humor, her intelligence, her charm. I try to describe that she's more beautiful and sexier than any woman I've ever known. I try to explain that she's the only woman in the world I would want to parent with, live with, love with, dream with. I try to somehow say that she's such a dream come true that she made me dream again. The words I put on paper, though, just aren't grand and gorgeous enough compared to what she deserves.

She wouldn't believe me anyway. She told our oldest son the other day, when he was telling her how beautiful she is, that he gets his bullshit from his father. She just doesn't believe me and when I do get through to her how amazed I am by her she says that's just what I see because of love. She's often incapable of seeing much good in herself.

So I tried to use that as a way in. I tried to describe how every negative quality that she is so acutely aware of in herself has a far greater positive quality that doesn't just more than make up for them but makes putting up with them less than a small price to pay for loving her. The negative is so small and the positive is infinite but I haven't been able to find the right words to explain that to her much less write about it.

I'm a stubborn jerk, though, so I keep trying. Even when she doesn't want to hear anything good about herself, even when she's incapable of believing it, I keep trying. She actually made me promise to keep being a stubborn jerk and that's a promise I'm more than capable of keeping.

I guess that's why I'm up late writing tonight. I guess that's my way in. I'm a stubborn jerk. I'm not going to give up on writing about her, and us, anymore than I would ever give up on loving her. I'm sure I've failed at writing just as I fail at loving her as well as she deserves but I keep trying. I'm sure this sounds confusing and rambling to anyone that doesn't speak the special language of our relationship but I'll keep trying to describe how much I love Kelly and how wonderful she is. She deserves better than a jerk like me but apparently it's what she wants. I guess she never had anyone tell her to be careful what she wishes for.

She says that too. She says she wished for me, she dreamed of me. It's inconceivable to me for anyone to feel that way about me much less someone as wonderful as her but I'll be a stubborn jerk and promise to try to understand that too. As long as I can find a way to tell her, so that she'll believe me, that she's more than a dream come true. Even in my dreams nothing felt this good and I've never felt so loved, and so lucky, in all my life. Reading this right now, she's probably shaking her head and muttering something about my bullshit but my bullshit ain't bullshit. Hopefully she realizes that at least a little bit when she reads this and hopefully while she's shaking her head she's at least smiling about this stubborn jerk that she loves for some reason.

To everyone else that reads this I apologize for the rambling and the run-on sentences and the repetition and the grammatical mess I've made of writing this. Poets write pretty words and singers sing graceful songs but this is what a man in love really sounds like, a dummy incapable of putting words together correctly. I hope most of you out there are lucky enough to know how I feel.