Eleven years.

We’ve been married for eleven years.

I need to sit here and let that soak in a little bit.

Because that shit is crazy.

Had you told me when we were walking down the aisle the crap we would go through. The words and phones and remote controls thrown around. The gut busting, head exploding sobs that would come wracking out of me. The papers that would get filed or the hours that would get spent in a counselor’s office – I would have run and not stopped until I was out of state. Three states away.

If you had told him how much work I was going to mean – that putting the ring on my finger wasn’t going to make me feel any more secure or safe or quiet than I did already, that I was going to fight postpartum depression and then just plain depression with every fiber of my being and that we would sacrifice dreams and plans and savings accounts to keep my head above water – I think he’d probably have run the other way too.

So I’m glad you didn’t tell me. And I’m glad he didn’t know either. Because after the hours of counseling, and papers that were filed to unfile the papers, and learning how to disagree without throwing things and burnt earth words, I look at him and think…

He’s the best thing on this earth that ever happened to me.

Ever.

He stood by me when people were telling him to run the other way. He saw me underneath the brick and the grime and the attack-first attitude. He watched as I shook and paced like a madwoman after a difficult counseling session. He held my hand when I cried over things that were so long ago I couldn’t remember if they were real or just nightmares. He helped me find my boundaries, my strength, and my vulnerability. He loved me enough to work. Really. Really. Really. Hard.

My parents showed me what a good marriage looked like. Jesse showed me how to build one from ashes and rubble.

Eleven years. Hard earned and breathtakingly beautiful years. I am so blessed he is my husband.