To My Husband On Our Tenth

To My Husband,

It's getting late and I'm staring at a bright but blank screen. What can I say in an essay that I'll schedule to post three days from now? Because tomorrow I'll pick you up from the airport and we'll begin a three day adventure together in celebration of this occasion. And I don't know where we'll have online access because we still don't pay for an Internet package on our old cell phones. I'm certainly not going to sit in a Starbucks and type up a blog post with you hanging over my shoulder. I can't write nice things about you while you're looking. It's easier to think them and to feel them than to say them all aloud. You know. It didn't take you long to figure out that you might have married one of the least romantic women in the history of all time. And it's not that I don't place a value on it or desire bed of roses style romance, it's just that I usually find it so uproariously funny, so hard to take seriously. Which is why you're perfect for me.

Because when I spit the fortune cookie out so that I could ask if you were serious when you popped the question on April Fool's, you didn't think I was gross. I didn't swallow it first and then wipe the corners of my mouth daintily before replying. I just spit the thing on the rocks at the harbor, asked if you were serious, and then said, "There's nothing I want more than to be your wife."

Four months later I said, "I do." And if that was just an elaborate April Fool's prank, the joke's on you. You're stuck with me.

It's a lot to be saddled with, I know.

I'm just so naggy and bossy and loud.

And you aren't. Not at all. You're like my very own character foil. You complete me.

It feels like I should say something monumental. Ten years is a long time. Especially in this world of divorce and separation and defeat. But the truth is, it doesn't feel like a big deal. It doesn't seem like the milestone that I thought it would because it's all just been...love. Thirty years. Fifty years. Those are milestones. This, though. This is just another year of loving you. This is knowing that we just got married yesterday because I feel like I can remember every detail and I know it didn't all happen an entire decade ago.

But then I hear the noisy breathing of the kid sleeping nearby. He's almost four and a half and all ours and the pain that we went through together is almost a distant memory. How can it be an old memory when ten years ago seems like yesterday? His brother is here, too. He's all limbs and loose teeth and seven. Our oldest son is seven. And after all this time, the trial that came before him produced endurance and is considered joy.

So much has changed in these ten years, but so much has stayed the same. Your smile still lights up my room. Your arms still hold me tight. Your eyes still search mine and in them is the blue depth of your love for me. It's not always easy. I'm not always easy. You're not always easy. Our children are definitely not always easy. But I love this life something fierce. I love you even more.

I'm still not sure what you were thinking when you picked me after all those years of waiting for just the right girl, but I'm so glad that you did. I know that I don't thank you enough for what you are to me, what you mean to me.

So thank you.

For all that you've been and all that you'll be. My best friend. The father of my children. My husband. Happy Anniversary.

I love you,
Your Wife