11/06/2025
8 years of marriage. 😍
Over 20 years of friendship. 🩷
I met Eric only two years after my mom died. It’s really that small gap that reminds me how much of a child I was at that time. We’ve grown up together. Not from school-age, on the playground. But from my first steps out of my home, as a young adult on my own. When he walked into classroom in college, with chinstrap facial hair, and waves peeking out from under his ballcap, I thought - “This is what sexy is.” It makes me laugh out loud sometimes thinking about that moment. It’s the chinstrap facial hair for me. 🤣👌
We’ve both faced battles over the years, have had our own issues to work through. They are the kind of things that could be too much. They could end relationships, but we’ve fought for each other. We’ve fought for ourselves. My were for me, but they were also for him. Watching someone you love plunge into the depths of self-loathing you can’t reach comes with a lot of varied emotions. But none of it’s easy.
I think a lot now about what I hope J sees in our relationship. I hope he sees that it’s not always everything, all at once. It’s not ALWAYS passionate, ALWAYS selfless, ALWAYS adventurous, ALWAYS peaceful. It’s not always everything, all at once. But it’s all of those things, and more. I want him to see the things that we’re learning through loving each other. Compassion, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, the power of seeing the world through different lenses, the way one person’s joy can permeate another, the critical hope in having someone say “it’s going to be okay”. And of course, the importance of doing an ice cream run on a bad day & the power of an appropriately-hearty laugh after a just-ok dad joke. I hope J sees that we chose ourselves in moments so we could choose each other, and that every time we are choosing our family over it all.
This is a long anniversary post for eight years. But I rarely get the time to write about Eric anymore. 😅
Happy anniversary to my best friend. You’re still the sexiest man alive. 😘
