This is what happens when you take the comment section off.

If you are like me, (its Matt) you grew into adulthood with several expectations. They are the same ones that came with me from my youth.

In my youth I started out choosing my friends, both male and female, solely on the premise that they would be perfect. Good grades, great athletes, straight teeth, perfect features and the promise that none of that would ever change. I mean, who has time to waste time on someone who has a flaw here or there. I mean come on....

That was the same ideology I am sure we all carried into the early years of adulthood. We would look for someone to spend our life with who would be perfect. And like you, I made sure to put it in the pre-nup that nothing would ever change. Waist line would never grow, hair line would never shrink. Scars would never mark the perfect body I had chosen to share my bed with. Child bearing isn't aloud to modify her in any way shape or form. No sickness, No pain, No complaints, nothing but bliss. Oh, and while I'm on the topic, she wasn't aloud to get older. Cuz getting older is gross. Skin loses its elasticity, pigment changes and gravity takes a tole. When ever I look at a husband and wife in their latter years, walking hand in hand through the park. Seeing him still open the door for his bride, pulling out her chair when they sit down to dinner, all I can think of is GROSS.... they're old !!

Can you read the sarcasm? Cuz I'm laying it on pretty thick..

My favorite musical line is "I love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections" truer words have never been spoken.

I sit here with several extra inches around my waist. My hair line is further back than I would like and new grey hair seems to appear every time I look. I have scarred my body with broken bones, torn ligaments, surgery and all manner of sometimes dumb decisions. I've had my share of sickness. Remember the fun I had with valley fever? That was a good one! My 30's have been rough for my body, or better said I have been rough on my body.

Most of the scars I have acquired were done along side some of my closest and dearest friends. We were forged together through that adversity and have come out the other side with a bond few could understand.

So here we are dear wife.

Since the moment of your diagnosis I have researched through the internet about all the steps we were about to go through. I checked into the medication, the radiation and the side effects. I know what the surgery looks like. (I'm not squeamish) I have been through all the treatments right by your side. I have a basic understanding of the pending complications and side effects that will forever change your body. Not you, just your body. I know what a bag looks like, how to change it, how to empty it. What the scars will look like. So what???

Do you think we all are going to run for the hills? We are going to stop being your friends and disassociate ourselves from you? Were we only here for you because we thought you were perfect? Are we supposed to shun you and send you to a leper colony because life continues to alter each one of us? If we had the ability to go back in time to when we all first met you, knowing what we know now, would we have chosen a different road? One that didn't run along side yours?

I know now that it is through the scars, the pain, the blood and tears that we find the irreplaceable people in our lives. It is through the adversity we become stronger. When the walls of pretext and pretending come down, we truly come to know someone.

Well I know you. I know all your scars, your curves, your imperfections. And I love them all. They trace the road map of your life that has led you to be who you are. It is true for all of us. Not everything in life is sexy. It isn't perfect in the sense we think of. There are scary, sad and down right horrible times in life. This is one of those times. It is for you. For me. And for those who love you more than you could know.

So what..... we will still be here for you. I will always be here. My life is sweet to me because in the summer of 2001 I met a girl named Ashley Emmae Harrison. She tried to run me off. She tried to leave me to go back to school. She tried to tell me she was waiting for someone else. It didn't work... I didn't leave. And this won't work either.

There are a lot more scars we need to make together.

p.s. If you turn off the comment section it drives us crazy. Plus I have access to post.. so knock it off..