235

To my love, happy monthly anniversary to you. To us. Thank you for being kind, loving, and strong. I don't deserve you. You say that I do. You laugh at my jokes. You say how kind I am, how clever I am. I don't feel it. And I wish I didn't doubt all the time. Thank you for loving me and tolerating my doubt.

234

Happy monthly anniversary, my love. We are at the darkest part of the year, the shadow version of the time when got married in the lightest part of the year. It’s now also the monthly anniversary closest to Christmas and the start of a new year. It’s the time when you look forward and put the old year behind you. You close the door on it and see the turning of the year as a new beginning, when everything is fresh from the bumps and bruises from the previous year. And yet we exist in that space where we have a history that gives us a thread through time. We put old years behind us, but we mark milestones. Next year, we celebrate 20 years of marriage. We don’t put those behind us. We add on, we take pride in that. It is the story of us. 

233

To my love. Again, another month for us together and in love. We huddle together as the nights grow darker and colder. This year, we celebrate Thanksgiving in our home, reprieved from the grind of holiday travel and the crush of families and the alien surface of guest beds. At least for this year we can have a casual Turkey Day with us and the cats, a trimmed-down affair with small portions and sleeping in and no preconceived notions and pressures of having a prefect holiday for family and friends. We don’t get a lot of these low-stress holidays, but I’m grateful for when we have them. It’s just us, and the cats begging for over turkey. It’s compact and I’m in the familiar territory. I’m comfortable. And I’m with you, my love.

232

To my love,

Another happy monthly anniversary to you. I love you. I hope I make you happy. I hope that I let you know every day that you are loved. I hope you know you are special. I hope you feel warm and protected and appreciated. I hope I do right by you. I hope you know you are special and I work every day at being a person worthy of you.

And may I always be worthy of you.

I love you.

231

I need to start thinking about what we are going to do for our 20th anniversary.

I need to write more.

I need to be a better person.

I need to love you better.

Better. More. The expectation of change and being something greater than you are. Part of love is being aspirational, where you make yourself into a grander vision of what you are now. You do it, I think to show how much you have learned, how much you have changed for the better. You do it because you don't want to admit you've lost a step with age, and you are still capable of the grand gesture, the romantic sweep. You do it because you don't want to take the other for granted. You do it because, you think, if you do such a thing, you'll get someone in return who will make a grand gesture for you, some kind of echoing that says, "I'm grateful for you in a way that's made of fanfare and supernova light."

I do it because I'm scared of taking you for granted and letting love die. When either happens, we become hollow, and I think that's the worst crime a person can commit: taking away the things that keep us from being hollow and dead inside.

I love you.