238

To my love, I come here again to remember our monthly anniversary. Thank you for being by me when I falter. It’s been a hard month for me. I know it’ll get better, I know you tell me that it’ll get better but my head will wander into that dark forest and tell me that it never will. Thank you for being strong and making sure I don’t go too deep into that forest. I love you.

237

Happy monthly anniversary, my love. Thank you for your strength, your love, and your patience as I continue my look for work in my  first month of employment in… almost a year and a half. I know others are having a worse time, especially with the wave of layoffs in the gaming sphere. I know I’ll land somewhere, but in certain moments, I panic. I think I won’t. I think I’ll never be in a stable job. I think I let you down. You never think that, and for that, I’m grateful and I remember that you believe in me. It gives me pause, especially when I don’t believe in myself. I love you. 

236

To my love, another happy monthly anniversary. Thank you for being so kind, loving, supportive, and all of those other angel traits you keep close to you. I’ve been reorganized out of a job, and now I have the ambient brine-in-the-stomach tension of looking for work. We’ve been through this before, and each time I feel guilty for somehow never being stable at work. It’s always a contract running out of money or a start-ups that needs to reorg. I tend to think something like I’m cured, but you never do. Thank you for your faith when I have lost mine, I love you.

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.