I Broke and Rose to Go, But I'm Not Going: Celebrating a Decade After 'I Do'.

Dramatic self-exiles. Tender, humiliating downfalls. Frostbitten feet cemented at the threshold, and a hot-headed heroine holding her heart halfway out the door. Melancholy musings, half-sung, half-screamed like a punk rock prayer flung into a star-speckled sky. You’ve never seen something so beautiful. I’ve never seen something so devastating.

Maybe I’m blue because, when I was young, I learned I was responsible for everyone’s happiness—even at the expense of my own. Perfect. Please. Perform. Pretty girl. And as fate would have it, resentment builds towers too high for most to climb—but you still do. Meanwhile, I pace the palace floor, persistently peeking out the windows like some kind of emotional nomad, unsure if my heart has home. Uncertain if I’ll ever feel like I belong.

And you? Steady through it all.

Ten years since we said “I do” on the lake amid ponderosa pines. It was the closest I thought I'd ever get to being seen. But alas, sometimes mirrors get fogged and reflections become unrecognizable.

Even so, we carried on. Sure, looks different these days—less about grand gestures or pronouncements, less about wooing or backseat lovemaking, and more about quiet offerings delivered in earnest to each other through the ordinariness and chaos that seem to mark our days. It’s carved in hushed intimacy---hand over muffled mouth---so as not to wake the sleeping baby. It’s early morning risings, sips of poured coffee, bowls filled with fluffy scrambled eggs, pre-heated ovens, arms outstretched ready to change diapers, a shared beer at the end of a weary day, and trying—in so many little ways—to make life easier for each other. Well, I don't know that I make it easier for you. But I endeavour to try.

That’s it. It’s about trying, even when trying is exhausting. When you’re in the thick of it,

there’s no sign of soulmates, no fantasy built on the backs of movie-screen lovers—there’s only choices that you make and choices that you don't.

And our love has endured them all.

I see that now.

So grateful. Cheers to ten years, babe.