Today’s is my wife’s birthday so let me tell you the short story of my wife. I’m sure she’s going to be happy to be the subject of the public blog post :-D. We’ve met nearly 3 years ago and we were engaged within 6 months. In less than a year we were married and here we are just a few weeks short from our second wedding anniversary.
Maria, my wife, is a construction surveyor. She’s also got a degree from civil engineering. Don’t ask me, I barely know whatever each of the degrees is about. I was curious though so it was the first time ever I visited my wife at work about 3-4 weeks ago, just to see what she’s doing. And as an IT person, I have to say, I’m happy to sit in my airconditioned office the whole day.
You see in our relationship I’m not the cool one. Having a wife that is very often the only woman in the field, got promoted recently to a team leader position and as a woman leading a bunch of dudes is intimidating. I mean imagine going to the party and people ask “what did you do last week” and I go “I wrote this cool popup on the website, it pops up and lets you subscribe to the newsletter, it’s amazing”. And you see your friends nodding and be like, “yeah, ok nerd, move on”. And what did you do Maria? And she goes “oh, just usual, I’ve finished the tunnel construction so now we’re renovating Auckland Zoo and building a waterfront building”. And then you see the jaws drop.
But being less cool in the relationship is cool. It is a combination of being proud and motivated every day, motivation to be as cool as your wife but also proud of the person who’s working so hard to beat that gender inequal industry that is construction. So I’d like to mention here how proud I am of my wife that is often working long hours in very often male safety equipment because women sizes are unavailable, works hard in heat and dust and still comes back home and smiles and is in a good mood.
And today for her birthday I would like to tell the world that you are the bravest and happiest woman I’ve ever met. When we got married we agreed for 65 years contract 🙂 I wish you another 63 years with me full of patience (you’ll need it) and so much smile as you do have every day. Happy birthday my love.