Happy Anniversary

I don’t know what these years are for. At least my heart does not know.

I long ago left the frenetic dreams that splintered like fireworks inside my head. Then, my battery was so full I thought I would never run out.

Now, I feel aches that used to not be there. Pains that have crept into this house, this body. I see my charge down to 50%. I wonder if it is even that much.

Was this where I was always heading to? This pedestrian existence? Was this inevitable? A simple life. A wife. Three children. A job, slow and steady. The days flowing under the bridge I stand on, without stopping and always the same, never to return again.

I suppose this is a midlife crisis if 80 years is all I have. This is not where I thought I would be. I am not going to reach that Promised Land I thought I would reach, not at this pace. This is the part where the character realizes, with a grim resignation, that he must say “no” to the vast majority of things he could well have said “yes” to years ago when he had the passion, drive, time, and discipline to do so.

But a single consolation slips in unawares in these, my darker moments. These moments when I think all has been a waste, a nothing of a life. That consolation is you.

Next to me, here, I see your face smiling back at mine. “I love you,” you and I say.

Those words mean what a novel could not express. After all the fights, pent up regrets, vulnerable admissions of defeat, failure, and shortcoming we have allowed each other to see, still, still, “I love you.”

On a day when I seem to have reached my peak, in a life that will start taking things away from here on out, having you here makes me feel as though I have lost nothing – or at least, that what I have lost and will lose is bearable. My heart is still so full with the sweet, supple fragrance of memories you have put there, a foundation from which to build the rest of our life together.

It is hard to call myself poor when I have the riches of your constant companionship. It is hard to say my life has been a waste when I see the little world we have created together, the five of us, pushing up from the ground like flowers blooming where once there was only concrete.

Perhaps I am in a crisis. Life is full of such hinge moments. But I know I am not alone in it because you, maybe against all odds, have chosen to stay. And neither are you alone because I, perhaps against all odds, am not going anywhere.

Happy Anniversary, I love you, and other some such statements married people say to each other. All I really mean to say is “thank you.” Thank you for being here. How lonely, cold, and robotic I would be without you. Thank you. And thank God for you.