I spent years giving my heart to the wrong people. The kind of people who knew they had my heart and everything that comes with it, and used it to their advantage. After a while you feel used. You feel like a rung out rag with nothing left. There comes a point in time that you have to be done. No matter how much it hurts at the moment. No matter how hard it is to say goodbye. There comes a point when you have to pick up the pieces of you that they broke, and walk away. If you are lucky enough, some day you will find someone who actually wants to pick up those pieces. After years of heartbreak, disappointment, tears, and depression; I just so happened to finally get lucky. Not only did I find someone who wanted to pick up the pieces, I found someone who mended them back together as if they were never broken.

Before I met you, I found myself fishing for compliments because they were very rare to happen. I would walk out in a new outfit, I did my hair differently, or I changed up my makeup. I was so excited for him to notice. My heels clanked against the floor. When that didn't grab his attention, I would make a comment about what I felt should be noticed. Not once could I get his eyes off the TV. During the first few times I had met you, I dyed my hair from black to maybe a little blacker. You noticed right away and complimented me. You noticed if I wore something new, and you made sure I knew that you did.

I have never felt in competition with something more than I have a cell phone. I never knew what it felt like to have all the attention on me, or even what it felt like to really be seen by the one person you wanted to be seen by. The phone was always more interesting than me or how my day was. Then you came along. I wouldn't even have known you had a cell phone if you hadn't talked to me on it before. You ask me how my day is multiple times a day. When I tell you about it, even the most pointless the things that happened, you listen so carefully and your eyes never leave mine. You listen with such care and compassion. You are hardly ever on your phone. You pour every ounce of attention and time into me. For that I am forever grateful.

There were always girls that had something that I didn't. He made me feel like I needed to have those things to be beautiful. When he looked at me, I felt like his eyes were going right through me. I often felt like more of a burden than a blessing to anyone. As we drive you always put your hand into mine. I can feel you looking at me with your bright blue eyes. You look at me in a way that I have never experienced before, with admiration and love. As cliché as it sounds, I feel like the only girl in the world when I'm with you. You make it known that I am the only thing that you want to be looking at, or paying attention to. That is something I have never experienced before.

Sometimes it is the littlest things that show me how different you are from everyone else. When we go out to eat, I never hear the words, "This sounds good" or "I want this". It's always, "What do you want? What do you feel like having"? You constantly put me before yourself. Even though you know I hate choosing. You just want me to be as happy as possible.

I have spent my older years always feeling like I needed makeup in order for anyone to notice me, including the people I openly gave my heart to. And they too made me feel like I needed it. Nowadays I will be sitting there with none on, hair a mess with stains all over my shirt from a long day at work and long night of being a mama, and you will endlessly tell me how beautiful I am.

One of the best things about you is you are happy doing whatever it is that I'm doing. If I have errands to run, you ask to join me in a way that I know you actually want to be there with me. We can sit at home all night and not do a single thing except watch TV or hang around and talk. We often spend the evenings watching my daughter play or giving her a bath, and you are completely happy and content through it all.

Often times, you will know my next step before I do. I will be looking for something and you will find it for me and give it to me without me saying a word about it. I'll be thinking something and lose my thought and you can finish my sentence for me. You can read me like a book. Never have I had someone take the time to watch me and learn my ways before, but you did.

I guess feeling loved comes from the big and small things. I think that's what people don't understand. It isn't how much money they spend on you or how many presents they buy for you. It's about coming home from a long day at work to flowers and a cute note. It's sitting down and having your feet rubbed (without even asking, may I add). It's asking about their day, appreciating what you have and showing that you do. Love is so many beautiful things, and you show me what it is in every single way. Every single day. You tell me all the time you don't know how you got so lucky as to have me, but trust me when I say I don't know what I did to have God bless my daughter and I with a man like you.