Like how you'll feel when you decide to give up your career to be at home...full-time...with three children.
Or, when your mammogram comes back abnormal.
Or, after a big fight, when you discover that you no longer share the same political leanings.
Or, when your nephew dies and you can't breathe.
Or, when you're not sure if your kid is being a jerk, or a natural leader.
Or, when you're tired of being the one who always notices that everyone else leaves their shit where they dropped it, and you are the only one who puts it back.
Or, when you're scared because you don't have answers, and you don't know what to pray anymore.
Or, you're feeling fat, and middle-aged, and not yourself, all the while wondering, who is this self meant to be?
Or, when you catch a glimpse, and see that he still looks really good with his shirt off.
Or, when your 6-year old is singing in her underwear, while painting a princess, and you see that he sees it too.
Or, when your 13-year old becomes a teenager and the only other human on the planet who understands how monumentally, wildly, beautifully, scary, sad, amazing that is...is your person.
Or, when your exquisite 10-year old plays something stunning on the piano, and you go to say, "That was SO beautiful, Kate," and he's saying it at the same time.
Or, when he shows up with a latte and smiles...
You realize that you just can't know the magical jumble, sweet collection of "I'm sorry's," "God damn it's," "I love you's," "Leave me alone's," "Thank you's," "Fuck you's," "I didn't mean that's," that comprise fourteen years of a life lived together.
And to that end, I'm glad that I don't know now, and that I didn't know then, what I was saying, "yes," to...
On this day, April 17, 2018...our 14th anniversary, I say,
Ode to you
Ode to me
Ode to us
Ode to being afraid, and showing up anyway
Ode to the uncompromising decision to choose our family over everything else
Ode to your humor and my seriousness
Ode to the screaming and the misunderstandings
Ode to the ugh's and the I'm right's
Ode to the you were right's and I don't want to be mad anymore
Ode to God and to falling on your knees every morning before greeting the day
Ode to the power of love and elbow grease
Ode to today, and tomorrow, and next year, and until my last breath...
Ode to the messy, hard, grateful beyond measure life I get to share with you...
