Apparently it’s wax. I’d get him a candle but after sixteen years, three little boys, two dogs, two cats and a fish, I’m already worried enough about the house burning down. Back then we thought disaster was what happens when your wedding cake melts and falls on the dance floor. Today we know that the bottom is much harder than we imagined that day we stood up there and said we were all in. People make marriages work in all kinds of ways. Up in here we ebb and flow with various ratios of give and take. Sometimes it’s 60/40, sometimes it’s 90/10 and as we say to the kids, “fair isn’t always equal.” Don’t let our highlight reel seem unrelatable. Our story has been held up with patience and forgiveness and time. Also family, friends, kids and therapy…because everyone needs therapy and the ones that say they don’t probably need it the most. We are in the oxymoron part of the story, moving at warp speed but waking up feeling like Phil: “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today." Kids, work, yard, soccer-so-much-soccer, groceries, work, Netflix reruns, rinse, repeat. The narrative is in the details, the glue that binds. He vacuums my car and leaves my coffee mug out for me every morning. I buy him new toothbrushes and send up a lunch to the third floor home office because he forgets to eat. We slow dance in the kitchen and go out to dinner at 4:00 so the babysitter can go out to party by 9:00. I wash, he dries. Sixteen years ago, this monotony would have worried us. Now it’s a source of comfort, a healing kindness that brings a story back together piece by piece, day by day. A keystone in a wobbly arch, strong and solid while we build, break and rebuild and choose again and again to keep going.

Happy wax anniversary, babe.

*Photo credit Mellissa Ortendahl Photography