Bonus Post! Apologies in advance, folks: this is about to get sappy.

For My Husband, On Our 20th Wedding Anniversary

I loved you – hard – from the start. My love wasn’t built solely on our chemistry, nor on our laughter, although both of those things certainly played a part. But immediately you weren’t just my lover; you were my partner and my friend.

It didn’t make sense. We had nothing in common, no basis for a lasting relationship. But I knew I could trust you. I knew we could be each other’s shelter-in-the-storm, each other’s light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.

To paraphrase Robert Browning in one of his letters to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I loved you because I loved you.

If I loved you that way when we had nothing in common, can you imagine how much I love you now, when we have everything in common because we’ve spent half our lives building a life together? When every joy we experience together is piled even higher atop every joy we have experienced together? When we only succeed because we are “we” instead of “you and I”?

Can you imagine how much I love you now, when I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was right to trust you, to hold you, to cherish you?

Thank you for being the reason I roll my eyes when I read romance novels with way too much drama in them.

Thank you for being both my hearth AND my flame.

Thank you for all the years that have passed. And for all the years to come, (to quote you) “thank you in advance.”

[Picture by Sara Herkes (check her out at saraherkesphoto.com). It’s from 7 years ago, but I love it]