partly

Today I have been married 20 years.

We had a nice dinner out, Wil and I. Came back home to a messy house and the usual nightly chores. Seems fitting. The wonder of marriage is that it's more than romance and passion. More than cleaning the house and sharing the chores. More than nights holding hands or evenings spent doing hobbies in separate rooms. It's all of those things, and more. It's about love and trust and sharing and acceptance. It's living with the faults of the one you love, not because you have to, but because they wouldn't be the one you love without those faults.

There are very few people in this world whom I trust enough to share my secrets with. Very few whom I have faith will love me if they knew who I really am. For me the greatest gift that marriage brings is also my greatest challenge: trusting that Wil loves me because of who I am, rather than in spite of who I am.

It's interesting that after 20 years, it doesn't get easier. Married life doesn't become boring or predictable. There is always something more to learn about the person you're married to. Odd, that. You would think that living with someone, seeing them everyday would make them easily understood or overly familiar. But it doesn't. Marriage doesn't take place in a vacuum, it takes place in life. The challenge of marriage is to learn how to be this new person you become every day and to live with that new person your spouse becomes every day. To trust that your love isn't tied to the little details of who each of you are, forcing you to be forever the same. Rather love is what gives you the courage to continue to share everything -- even change -- with someone else.

Happy anniversary,