Three Years

Dear JD…. I’m not sure if I properly thanked you. You know, for the travel book light I attach to the pages late at night. The nights when I can’t sleep, but you can. The nights when I sit propped by a mass of pillows and you sleep with your arm flung across my abdomen, your face pressed against my left shoulder. Those nights. That book light.

When I was a kid, my parents begged me to close my book late at night. The nights I couldn’t sleep because Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were about to solve the mystery. I’d lay against the window to have the backyard light illuminate the pages, my eyes straining to see the small text on the thin pages of my library book. One night, my dad yelled at me when he saw that I stole his utility flashlight to read under the covers. I cried. He apologized.

The following week, my dad came home with a pair of glasses from the thrift store for me. In retrospect, they weren’t really glasses—as it was just the frame, no lenses—but they came with two small light bulbs in the corners. My dad pulled back the stems of the frame and placed it on my face and the bulbs turned on. I smiled a crooked smile because there would no longer be Hardyless nights. He smiled a crooked smile because his daughter looked like a nerdy miner. A literary miner crawling through dark tunnels of books.

JD, little did I realize that the nerdy miner of yesteryear never went away. I just grew a few inches and gained some weight. But the tunnels of books? They’re still piled next to my bed. And you bought me the book light to ensure I’d never have to be proverbially Hardyless again.

It’s funny, really. I never realized how you’ve morphed into my perfect match in so many ways. You know me better than I know myself, and the book light is just small proof of it. The bottle of water you place next to the bed every night is proof of it. Putting my shoes back in the closet WHERE THEY BELONGGGGG is proof of it. All the small things you do and think I don’t notice, but I do, is proof of it.

Three years ago today, I stood on a Hawaiian beach and swore to love, honor, and cherish you for the rest of my life. On that day, I foolishly assumed that I couldn’t possibly love you more than I did on our wedding. That my heart was filled to the brim with adoration, and not a single drop more could be accommodated. Silly me. Because, really, when I look back on our wedding day, I can honestly say that was the day in our married life I loved you the least.

Thank you for making me the best version of me I can possibly be. Thank you for loving me in spite of me. Thank you for consistently overlooking my flaws. Thank you for being my husband. I love you.

Happy Anniversary.

**SIDENOTE**
These pictures were taken this past week at a wedding we photographed…and I'm sure JD is going to KILL ME for posting them! 🙂 When I think back to the pictures we have together, they're all at weddings. I'm planning on getting our pictures professionally taken at some point, but until then, the horrific candids must suffice! 🙂