I am a lot. Like certifiably. I want too much. I demand too much. I need too much.
I’ve known this all my life. Its served me well as I’ve just set my eyes on new challenges and hurled myself at them with focus and tenacity.
But it’s hard with my people. I think I can be a hard person to live with. To be with. So uncompromising and stingy with the grace.
So it’s been a revelation to find myself married for 15 years. To have found someone who’s not afraid of the messy. Of the too much. Who gives an anchor to my wings.
It’s in the hardest times that we realize what it is that we actually have and in the turmoil of the past year I’ve realized just what a gift I have in the sturdiness of him.
Someone who doesn’t shy away from the hard, uncomfortable work. Who can take my frustrations and come back with optimism and a plan.
Who has never walked away from my too much.
In the 18 years we’ve been together we’ve been through a lot. Some years more shouty than others. We are two very different people coming from two very different backgrounds.
But if there’s one lesson marriage has taught me it’s this:
There is no inevitability. No forgone conclusions. There is only waking up every single morning and deciding to do the work. To fight.
So yeah, I marvel on days when I make it really hard to want to fight for this. I am in awe of the strength and the sense of self it needs to keep showing up. To keep pushing at me, but also, keep pushing with me.
True partnership is really hard. It pushes us to the brink as often as it feels rewarding.
Running two companies, raising two kids, keeping a sense of our own selves while holding onto and nurturing our relationship - so many days the math of all that feels crushing.
Our wedding rings are engraved with:
In dreams and in love…
… there are no impossibilities.
It’s in the hardest days I feel those words the most.