12 Years

Words will fail here. I should get that out of the way at the start. Whenever I write something, I always feel like someone who underestimated the distance of a jump, but only realized it midair. But I know that these words are never going to cross the gap. It's not possible.

12 years ago, EA and I were married and time has done a weird thing. It doesn't feel like we have been married for that long, but at the same time, it's hard to remember a time before EA was in my life. A dozen years doesn't seem that long ago. 2005 doesn't seem like it was eons in the past. Then I remember that 12 years before I started falling for this woman, I was seven years old just like our oldest son is now.

Reflecting on this past third of my life, I am incredibly grateful for this most amazing woman that has stuck by me. Marriage is a leap of faith and what I have discovered in taking that plunge is a human being who is more wonderful than I knew as a lovestruck 22 year old. Again, words would fail in telling you how smart, funny, caring, and beautiful she is. They would fall short in describing how great she is at being a mom, the ways she strives after her faith, how creative she is at her craft, and how she has helped me be a better man.

A lot has changed around us: homes, cities, and states. There are two smallish people in this room who have been making a constant buzzing noise for the past two minutes for reasons I do not know (I just asked them and the bad guys got zapped by the Phantom Zone projector). They didn't used to be in our lives and they've changed the ballgame in a myriad of ways (almost all of them wonderful). I've changed vocational paths and so has she. It has been 12 years in flux, of both of us trying to figure together how to be adults. On good days, we succeed. On bad days, we help each other compensate. So much has changed and yet I come home each day and EA is there. And I cannot tell you how much that constant means to me.

Grateful. I will come back to that word. I am grateful that I get to share life with such an amazing woman. I love her more than I could ever adequately say. I am so grateful we stood in that South Carolina theater 12 years ago and said "I do." And I will continue to say "I do" to her every single day.