11/21/2023: To Us
We celebrated two years of marriage yesterday. It feels like I was just planning our wedding and suddenly it’s a memory. While we were reminiscing last night over old times together, it made me realize how much I don’t say out loud anymore. I don’t know how we get to a point where we forget the right words, the ease in which we used to say what we felt and do what we felt.
It reminded me that you can’t assume that someone knows what you think, how you feel. You have to keep telling and showing them how much they mean to you. I believe in the saying that you shouldn’t stop dating your spouse; so simple but so true. And I also believe that it isn’t always 50/50 in any type of relationship. That’s just the ideal, picture perfect illusion. If you aren’t able or willing to give 90% when your better half can only give 10%, or to give 10% and your better half give you 90% in your days of need, then I believe a conversation needs to be had.
Pulling weight is a fluctuating thing; it depends on life and how we’re affected by it. Ebbing and flowing through the highs and lows is the only constant in life, and we must be consistent in our readjustments to navigate these changing times.
I heard someone say that “sexy” isn’t the perfect and intangible thing we make it out to be. That it’s the real things we do when no one is looking. I may have botched the words, but long story short, people try so hard to make sure they are perceived a certain way, whether it’s the way they look, how they partake in personal and intimate acts, or that they’re perceived in a desirable light in general. So much so that they don’t even act like themselves. And on the other matter, it’s the raw and real things in life that make us who we are, and whatever people perceive should always be who we truly are when we are alone, when we are struggling in the dark or privately celebrating our victories.
Our sense of self should always be steady and consistent, and the expectations of the world shouldn’t have the power to make us waver. It’s hard to be yourself, and even harder to love yourself when the world sends mixed signals and casts a shadow of doubt over us. But it is well worth the hard work to be confident in your own skin, to be someone’s complete and utter better half with the right amount of self identity and self worth to know who you are with that person as well as without that person.
Life has been a wild journey so far, but I’m so happy with where I am right now. And I’m so glad I get to do life with someone that has continued to grow with me all these ten wonderful years. All the words I told him on day one and beyond still ring as true as they did before. I’ll do better saying them aloud again.