Lucky Thirteen

Today is the the thirteenth anniversary of the day my lovely wife and I got married. For years I relied on the good people at Hallmark to put into words what I needed to tell her, telling myself that it wasn't that I was lazy, it was that they put it better than I could. Maybe at the time, that was an accurate statement. These days all the cards feel, I don't know, fake. Inaccurate maybe. At the very least, there's something insufficient about handing my wife a card that some other guy has handed his wife.

The thing is, it's still difficult to explain how much my marriage means to me. In the past thirteen years, I've become a different person, or at least that's how I perceive myself anyway. When I can make myself, I can sit down and look at every bad habit I came into this marriage with, and look through the years as she helped me diminish each one of them. I can look at every strength I have, and track the ways she encouraged me to develop those strengths. She'll tell you that this is the person I've always been, that she knew that thirteen years ago. I'm not sure I'll ever be convinced of that, but in every way I'm a better man for having her in my life.

Every day, my wife in some way makes my life a better place to be than it ever could be without her. Every day she helps me to become a better person. I'm sure that in another thirteen years, or another thirty, I'll feel the same way.

I love you sweetie. Happy anniversary.