Two years ago tomorrow we were in that wonderful barn saying big things to each other in front of our people, and our families were there standing with us and it was hard not to cry over the weight of it.  I was in the heaviest dress.  I could not get Ruth out of my head.  Everyone had told me it would be a blur, that it would go by so quick and so I was hanging tight to every moment, whispering remember this, remember this, willing time to stay put.

And it seemed like it stayed stuck for ages those first three months.  Time drug and stalled and crept and my heart did the opposite.  I was a lurching, rushing, feeling mess.  We were a mess.  We had our largest fights.  No, brawls.  I drove and drove.  I made it to the next state over one night and cried even harder when I realized I had no where to go.  I learned to stay put.  He learned to give me time.  We learned to stay in love while fighting hard.  We learned to do everything hard-- to play, to laugh, to love-- hard.

I picked myself up after all the Netflix had run out and all the cakes in the world had been baked.  I got a job.  He cheered me on.  We celebrated each other, we celebrated everything.  We went on special dates on the second of every month.  We counted our relationship's growth like parents count babies' months.  We bought extravagant gifts.  We surprised, spoiled, pampered each other with cards and flowers and our words.  And so there were the wine colored nights alongside the stormy ones and we were at once great friends and new lovers.

The first year went by and we gasped.  The second year is about to pass and I have not yet bought a card.  We have been wrestling our first house, have been coaxing and shining century old floors.  We have paint in our hair, knots in our backs, we have not eaten off a real plate in days.  He is still there, priming and painting because he is a good man and I am here, sitting on the couch because I am a tired girl and because I married a good man.  Last night we sat on our patio and ate spaghetti from the pot and had wine from the bottle and it was so simple and sweet that I forgot for a while the dying marriage breeds.

There is a full life here, breathing and growing inside the tension that two sinners joined together create.  There are sparks and fury and there is a deep peace here, too, when my soul rests with his and he loves me in spite of my harsh tongue, my hot and cold heart, my quiet.  He loves me with God's love and that is enough to make me stay forever.