January 18, 2022

My dearest,

Today is just like any other day, an ordinary day where the sun has risen and the sun will set. The sky is above our heads, hopefully clear and blue; the ground beneath our feet dependably solid, dependably there.

Yet this isn’t quite true. Today isn’t just like any other day. Not for us.

We aren’t the type to celebrate anniversaries or if we are, we celebrate them simply with greetings exchanged and a good meal. That’s it, really. This is unlikely to change; our approach works for a reason: we are simple people with simple tastes.

Yet even we have to admit that, this year, our anniversaries feel more significant, resemble more a matching pair of ribbons we tie around the twinning branches of mated trees. Seven years of marriage and twice that number that we have been together.

It’s astounding, were we bystanders, were we outsiders looking in. But we both know how much sweat and tears went into these seven and seven years. We both know it took a lot of work.

What matters, then, we now understand, is that it was both of us working at this in unison. We went at it together, building our partnership brick by brick, layering time and toil till we have crafted this beautiful life we call our own. And we keep doing it, day after day after day.

Others might tell us that we were lucky to have found each other. Perhaps this is true; there is always some element of fate in this, an ounce at the very least of good fortune.

No one is perfect until you find the one who is perfect for you. Someone who is atrociously, ridiculously perfect for only you. But that is not the whole story or that is only a beginning.

This isn’t about perfection but about how we took the time and effort to learn about, to understand each other better. And we still do. This is about the process, about us continuing to do so.

Anyone who says they have no regrets in life is either lying or a saint or a fool. (Perhaps it’s all the same.) I’m sure I have many and yet, in what truly matters, I have no regrets. Everything I’ve done brought me here to you, to us.

All the wise decisions I had made, all my mistakes and my failures, all my strokes of blind luck – they all draw a path from me to you. To when we first met seven and seven years ago. To when we exchanged our vows, seven years ago, in front of the people who mean the most to us in the world.

To the path that we continue to draw together, towards our future, towards the magnificent span of all our years to come.

Love is us doing the most ordinary of things
And it being a miracle, a most astounding feat.

Happy anniversaries, my dearest.

Yours, ever and always.