Happy Birthday, Maria!

Today is Maria's birthday.
I won't say which one, just that she is way younger than I.
I consulted a psychic when I was going through the craziness of separation and divorce in the collapse of my first marriage. I don't put much stock in psychics, but I was grasping at straws, searching for clues and directions.
"You haven't met your soulmate yet," she told me. "She's still a few years away. She's younger than you, has two children and her name starts with an M."
So I spent the next few years walking around with my antenna up for M women.
Until I was introduced to Maria.
I think she recognized me too.
Maria understands me on a deeper level than anyone I've ever known. She has an astonishing sense of fairness. Even in the heat of an argument, she's analyzing and checking for ways she could be wrong and I could be right or looking for some larger issue for which the argument is just symptomatic.
She gave me the nerve to quit my 34-year newspaper job after it became more of an ordeal than a joy. (The psychic said I would retire early. I quit/retired at 55.)
She helped me through the declining years and deaths of my parents.
I could sit here all day and list the ways in which Maria has enriched my life. I just hope I've been half as good for her.
I love her and hope everyone she knows will join me in wishing her the happiest birthday ever.