my love,

I was such an idiot. Standing at the altar, refusing to turn around. I must’ve looked so smug, but I wasn’t. I was excited, I didn’t want anything to go wrong, I didn’t want to jinx it. Wasn’t I not supposed to see you until the ceremony. But today was the ceremony, how dumb. But I was happy. This was really happening, the thing that I thought would never happen. The dream that woke me up in tears when I was thirteen: I couldn’t see her face, I couldn’t see her but she was in my arms and I was loved and in love, she was right there but I couldn’t see her. And here she was, walking up the aisle and I wouldn’t turn around. I was proud. Proud that I made it this far, that we made this real.

Isn’t this life insane? So many things we’ve been through. The faxes, the emails, the IRC chat rooms, scrambling around airports, walking through Paris, unimpressed with London, tight hotels, lazy motels, playing house in Albany, being bohemian, our little apartment which was bigger than we needed because spent all our time in the bedroom. Moving back to New York, trying to be adults, looking for a home to start a family, we had started a family, ioanna, then michael, the first flood, then the second, the parade of cars, the anger, the fights over money, the fear of something precious being lost, and yet, we go on, one off to the college, the next in the wings, but still you. Still the joy of you. The woman of my dreams who I couldn’t bear to see her face, who I couldn’t bear to see on our wedding day, who I cannot wait to return to.

There is nothing in this world that means to me more than you.

always,

me