Happy anniversary, darling. Goodness, what a journey it's been.
A new beginning of sorts
So, today, this is my gift to you: continuing to do what I did at the beginning... write you love letters. But instead of Kate Spade stationary and my middling handwriting, I now write you here — with a kind of writing that we can read at night, after our beautiful, couldn't-be-better girls and boy are in bed and asleep, and we close down these days with the rumbling thoughts and even dreams that sit just below the noise of our consciousness.
Not a pleasantry
"It was always you" isn't some phrase I plucked from the air for its poetic lilt, its nice sound… it's something I mean, absolutely, resolutely. In the days since our first day together, coming on 15 years ago, the idea of other possible worlds, futures, avenues to walk down have faded, more and more, with each day, each season that has passed. I pledged to burn the bridge when we got engaged, and burned it on that beautiful day 8 years ago, witnessed by our family and dearest ones, in this little pocked of wildness we'd never before discovered in Dallas.
And I now, more than ever, disbelieve that there was anyone else for me, out there, anywhere in this world, in any possible world. It was always you. Not even the hardest day disproves it, not one millimeter.
I'm yours, forever, forwards and backwards in time and space.
But even more than that… I want, and even believe, that there's a goodness, a beauty, a life coming for us, to us… one that very the sight of it will make those who witness wonder… who is it that could make things so whole, so good, beautiful? That this would be the depths of the joy, and peace, and heart-riches, that it would leave others helpless but to wonder what its source was. That this will be the depths to which Abba knits us together, with him in between, him in the middle of it all… he, the builder of the house, and the substance from which it's built.
In this world, this is the thing I most want.
And when I turn into the wind of this desire… an audacity begins to rise in me, suspends my disbelief, makes me capable of believing what I actually do believe, that the weight of the wave of his might and his great heart will carry us in its swell to this future, this wide and spacious place.
Writing you here today — and continuing on from this day — is one way, one very essential way, I will be fanning this flame of my belief, no matter the weather.
I love you so much. I always will. In this world, you are my endless wonder.