20

We are both creatures of perfectionism carrying so many things we wish we could take back in life so we could be perfect for each other. So many jagged edges the results of our pride and fear and silence and words we could have smoothed with better choices. Not for ourselves. For each other.

This is why we work. This is why those regrets are not anchors but balloons that float us even as we’d rather they didn’t exist. In fact, what I have learned in twenty years is that I prefer your mistakes to any perfections you could possibly create.

I don’t love who you wish you were. I love who you actually are. I love our scars because they mean we stayed long enough after falling to grow new skin. To be grafted back together when we were sure we’d cut each other so deeply our gashes wouldn’t heal.

Every stitch it’s taken to pull us back together has only bound us more tightly.

When we were 19, I told you I wanted you to marry me. Let’s just see if we make it through the summer, you said.

When we were 20, I told you I loved you more than I love myself. We won’t make it if that’s true, you said.

When we were 21, I told you I was afraid. Me too. Doesn’t that just mean this is important to us?, you asked.

When we were 22, I told you I was yours for life. I’ll never leave, you said.

When we were married, we made a number of promises. In the life we’ve lived since, these are the vows I carry most:

Christ in us, love in every moment, forgiveness without limit, truth especially when its hard, laughter in the face of darkness, and our hands in each others’ no matter the path we must walk.

I have been able to keep these vows because you have kept them too. Because you inspire me to get up when I fail, stay soft when I want to be hard, abandon my fear of being alone even when you are not with me. Every choice you’ve made is what allows me to be inspired this way.

I love you, not a version of what you could or might be someday. I love the flawed, real, perfectly genuine version I spend every day with. I don’t need you to change the past because the past is us. I don’t need you to become something different in the future because the future isn’t real.

All I need is you here in every moment, fingers between mine, laughter just behind the beautiful smile that is my sunrise, eyes looking to find me.

All I need is all you are. That’s all I’ve ever needed.