It’s become a bit of a practice to reread the vows I wrote for my wedding day around our anniversary. This is the third year I’ve done so and they’re always impactful in new and interesting ways. This time I’m struck by how long they are! Clearly I had a lot to say about this extremely personally important moment and I was not shy about sharing those things. For a hint of context as to that last word, our wedding was baseball themed, complete with invitations that looked like tickets to a ballgame, centerpieces that were made up of borrowed equipment from a local charity, and the colors of our respective favorite teams (Dodgers and Orioles) featured in every way we could muster. I had originally written it as a repeat of my wife’s name, the same way that I opened the vows, but I was so swept up in the moment and by our surroundings that it made much more sense to commemorate the thing that binds she and I together.
Heather, one of the most difficult things about writing this was deciding which word to being with. There are so many that encapsulate and reflect the many emotions and feelings I have for and about you. Volumes could be filled, dictionaries emptied, thesauruses worn through, and still it would not be enough to accurately convey the depth and breadth of what I wish to express. No one collection of vowels and consonants seems adequate. And so it falls to your name to start; those seven lucky letters that your parents so wisely chose to bear the honor of giving you individuality.
When we first met we did not know each other's given names. Those were the early days of social interaction online, before we trusted total strangers with our bank information and home addresses let alone our first names. For a good while we conversed as our online personas, and yet even then I felt a connection to you. Long before we saw each other in person for the first time, we were good friends. Almost family, in some ways. Our shared geekery and appreciation for certain subcultures made us fast companions, so much so that it was a foregone conclusion that it would be a fruitful in-person first meeting. And so it was. The banter and jokes carried over into the “real world” so well that there was little awkwardness. I knew, in that odd little kitchen in Hollywood, that I had found a friend for the duration.
Time, as it will, marched on. Our lives spiraled away from each other in many ways and we went back to our intermittent online friendship as it did so. While our correspondence dwindled, the support and love did not. Our paths diverged and we each went about our lives. And I found myself in a place I had not expected. I was alone in ways I did not anticipate. I needed to open up and did so to one of the few people I had felt a strong connection to and that seemed important and vital to rekindle that.
With nary a step missed, you were right there. Since those first lines of text sent back and forth, that love and support was there. I felt the warmth and contentment again that I had missed for so long but had been second nature for us. Life events timed out in such a way that we were there for each other when it was sorely needed, even across thousands of miles. Over time we made those miles seem to melt away, then they actually did, and we found each other in the same physical space again. This time was different, even closer than we had been before.
Bit by bit, a new future opened up before us. My world shifted to something I never foresaw, but there was no fear or confusion. A crystal clarity began to form the more these new shared facets grew. Because of you, I began to see the world anew.
You bring so many wonderful things into my life. You help me embrace the joy that exists in being with another. You show me the value in being wrong and learning from it instead of hiding from it. You open up the possibilities of the world before us with a piercing yet wistful determination I could never muster alone. And you make me want to do all of those things for you, and more.
I will not promise you the moon and stars because you already are them to me. I will not deign to offer that which you already hold within yourself. I can say that I will be there, by your side, through any and every thing. Always. You are my love, my past, my present, and my future. I love you endlessly and without conceit or design. I love you formlessly and openly, with sights set on you, me, us. And throughout it, I hear and feel the one word that carries all this within me: baseball.