Chosen

I once said it feels the best to be chosen by someone, and you asked: How do I choose you? I said: You choose me when … …you send me a cool text

…you flirt with me

…you invite me to lunch to be with you around your friends

…you walk across a crowded room to stand next to me so I can reach out and touch you

…you brag about me and the word finds its way back to me and I feel like king of the world

…you show up at my door after I thought I’d lost you forever

…you want me to join you on out-of-town workshop weekends and don’t feel like you have to entertain me

…you say: Putting up with each other is another way of saying I love you

…you look at me with delightful eyes across the gym during Pump class, because of the song lyrics, and everyone in the room knows why

…you ask me to join you in the dressing room at Title Nine, saying: Come in here and feel me in this dress

…you tell a room full of skeptical women that you have given me your heart and I hold it very gently

…I discover to my delight that trying to sit beside you at pizza in Denton with the NMJC band is easier than I thought because you are trying to do the same

…you tell Patti not to get mad at Jim for bossing me around during filming because I can handle it and I wouldn’t have survived 12 years of government unless I knew how to be cool about those situations

…you tell someone to read or subscribe to my journal or pitch my books

…you play (and dance to) Aerosmith’s Walk This Way while I take my first post-surgery walk down the hospital hallway

…you take me to Rosa’s after I get home from the mountains and sit across from me and put your feet up on my bench seat, one foot against each of my hips, with searching curiosity in your eyes because you want to know about my time on the trail and you intend to wait until I tell it all

…you make me sit down and listen to the Seton Medical presentation at the Austin Marathon

…you press the issue of Wild at Heart Boot Camp knowing I thought it a selfish indulgence, because you don’t want me to think only the cool guys go to things like that, and you make sure I register even on a cruise ship during our family vacation

…you buy an Arc'teryx Bora 80 backpack for me and encourage me to use it

… you write the check for my Specialized Tarmac Elite road bike

…you wait patiently for me at the OKC Marathon finish line and do not say, I can’t believe it took you so long

…you bravely follow me while I leave a high-paying job and take off on my own

…you tell me, That was a Jack Ryan move, whenever I bring together scattered data to form a new insight

…you encourage me to go forward with knee replacement and take great care of me during recovery and rehab

…you tell Ronnie: Don’t worry Berry doesn’t get upset over things like that

And today, after 36.54 years of marriage, I can’t wait to see how you’ll choose me again

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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