This is not a Valentine’s Day post. Jeff and I don’t subscribe to that shit. Not that there’s anything wrong with it whatsoever. It’s just not our jam. Anniversaries and birthdays, not so much either. We’re very unromantic. If there’s one thing that keeps our marriage alive, it’s the jokes and laughter that we share at each other’s expense.

Our first brunch date of the year after dropping our daughter off at school — when both our stars and our schedules finally aligned — was at the Courtyard Cafe in Fountain Gate. Jeff wanted chicken skewers and chips. I wanted the Greek salad. All a bit too much, in retrospect, because it was like, a full-on meal. A far departure from my usual order of hash brown and coffee. But I managed to eat most of my share anyway because I still get leftover guilt over an unfinished plate. A conditioning brought to me by a childhood filled with reminders of starving kids who didn’t have anything to eat when the threats failed to work.

In between my regret of ordering too much food and us expressing our gratitude for such a beautiful life, we sat in our booth for one and a half hours just shooting the breeze.

“What impresses you the most?” I asked him. I feel like I have a repository of random questions in my brain and he’s the lucky recipient of my curiosities.

“Intelligence,” he said. “Because you can’t buy that.”

He didn’t even need to ask me back to be polite. I eagerly volunteered my answer because before I raised the question, I had thought long and hard about it and ruminated about what really, truly impresses me. I knew it wasn’t material stuff. It wasn’t bags or cars. I mean, I wouldn’t mind having luxury stuff but they’re not something that makes me go, “wooow!” You know what I mean?

Kindness.

I am impressed by kindness.