When Jeremiah Johnson meets Sound of Music...

***WARNING - this post contains information that my cause nauseousness. If you've been known to feel sick/irritated/disgusted by posts dealing with marital happiness, DO NOT read any further.***

I should be sleeping right now, but... I just finished watching the season finale of The Bachelor. I have watched almost all of the Bachelor/Bachelorette seasons, and without fail, they all have the exact same effect on me:

Every year, I wonder what would have happened if I'd been the Bachelorette, and my husband had been amongst the twenty-five gorgeous contenders.

And every year I come up with exactly the same answer:

I totally would have picked him.

Seriously. There is no way I could have ever chose someone else while he was in the running. And believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I tried extremely hard to NOT pick him in the first place (for all the wrong reasons, because I was young and stupid), yet in the end I had to finally admit the truth. Life could not have gone on with out him. No matter what other kinds of charms they could have brought to the equation, anyone else would have been found lacking.

Tonight, when Jason dumped Melissa because he finally realized he was in love with Molly (and no, I'm not saying I'm sure they're actually going to make it, I'm just saying if I were him, and Molly was Rusty...which just sounds so wrong...) I suddenly knew that if I'd been Jason, and Rusty had been Molly, I would have had to do the exact same thing.

Just a little background. My husband and I don't necessarily fit as your "typical" couple. Everyone has been saying it since practically day one (with the exception of a few brilliantly insightful people who instantly saw that we were made for each other). Just tonight, my SIL asked me again how it is that he and I work together. I suppose you could say we're a bit like Jeremiah Johnson meets Maria from The Sound of Music. (Seriously. If you want to know what I'm like, I'm a LOT like her. And he basically IS J.J. - minus the squaw and the bear coat).

I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. He makes me laugh. Constantly. He's a bit moody, rather reclusive, a total babe, completely off the wall, and totally unpredictable. He hates emotional confrontations, is a fabulous father, and the most humble man I know. True, I catch him wearing his running shoes with his church slacks, and if it were up to him his entire wardrobe would be made up of hunting camo, but somehow we manage to get along just the same.

You'd really think that a Chatty Kathy like me wouldn't do well with Silent Man, and that his need for alone time in the uncharted wilderness would clash with my panic-attack tendencies. But, while it's true that I have my annual Rusty's-hunting-alone-in-the-wilderness anxiety, I would be lost without him. He is a true, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (and I mean this so literally), one-of-a-kind original guy, I seriously doubt I could ever replace him if he actually did get himself eaten by a cougar.

So while I'm doing my best to keep this love-fest from becoming overly nauseating, I just have to say it. My husband rocks. He is the man for me. He makes my world go round, and just the thought of him can still put a smile on my face. I love when I see him unexpectedly and get butterflies. Because I do. Even after eleven-almost-twelve-years. And four kids.

So thank you ABC for giving me one more chance to reflect on the rightness of my decision to pick the wild-card and go for Rusty. It was seriously the best choice ever