[Nevertheless] We Celebrate

As we lay in bed sharing deep emotions and life-strangling fears,  love and care and hopes and dreams knit themselves into our conversation. Not wouldn't-it-be-nice dreams, but we-need-to-make-this-happen dreams. Simple dreams, like a weekend to ourselves in Vermont, and more elaborate dreams like mushroom hunting in the Pacific Northwest and growing a hobby into a livelihood. Dreams that seem so out-of-reach due to finances and physical constraints, while at the same time must be. 

Our twenty-third year has been one of distance and struggle to connect - both within ourselves and with each other. We've made joyful memories and sorrowful ones as well. This was the year of more bad times than good, more sickness than health, and during which we caught a glimpse of until death do us part.

Nevertheless, through it all, the constant was our love for each other. Even when we weren't showing it, or feeling it, it remained, ever-hopeful. 

My Honey...

As we enter our twenty-fourth year of marriage, I am grateful for you, for your love, the little things you do to love me, for your touch, your smile, the strange wonderful music you share with me, for your eyes that say to me all the things your heart feels. I'm grateful for the bumps in the road and the ravines traversed, as they will only make our marriage stronger in the end. 

Always remember...you are never alone.

And always remember... I love you.