My Beloved

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

        i 

carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)e.e cummings

It's a late post, and I wasn't going to do one today, just not feeling very 'bloggy' - this lurgy won't leave us be. Joel has it too now. The boys are better, but this also means they are running circles around two very tired, sick parents. :D

We're having an anniversary do-over probably next weekend. We'll make a day of it. Neither of us well enough to celebrate today, and Joel having to work didn't make for our best anniversary.

But. It must be marked. In this, journal of my heart, no matter how public, I declare this, our 14th wedding anniversary as still sacred to me. It is 14 years since I have been his wife. 14 years since we stood before God and our families and friends and pledged an eternity together.

14 years since we promised "in sickness and in health". More than 12 years that Joel has had to live up to that part of the bargain, far more than any 21 year old ever imagines they will. And live up to it he has. Every day, every month, every year he has taken care of me, refused to resent me, done nothing but love and put me first.

How did I get this lucky? I know not. I'm noone special (except as the matriach of this little family, I am priceless) and have done nothing to deserve such a blessing. But somehow, this frumpy, snarky, ugly duckling turned 21 and found out her best friend in the world was falling in love with her. And miraculously, he waited (not long, I'll grant you) for my head and heart to fall in line and realise I loved him back. That this was it-for both of us. This was it for us forever. It was less than 3 months later he dropped to one knee and asked me to be his wife. As though there was ever a doubt it was meant to happen.

We've been through the mill in the last 14 years. If I were to tell you the things that have happened to us, to our families, to our closest friends, you'd not believe me.  All written down - it is too much. Drama, heartbreak, illness, death, birth, love. And while some of it has been almost sprit-breakingly hard to deal with, there has always been that one constant. His quiet strength, his love for me, his goodness, soul deep.

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace”

                                                                    -Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

I don't want to think about where I would be without him. I don't want to imagine my life, had I taken another path. I don't dare imagine myself without Joel as my beloved. It doesn't bare thinking about. It seems empty and hopeless. And perhaps that is not politically correct, this declaring myself dependant on this man. And perhaps that's dangerous, placing my heart so squarely in his possession. So easily he could crush it.

He's worth the risk. He's worth the trust. Even if it all ended tomorrow (my heart speeds up as I type this and I want to wake him, as he sleeps next to me, just reassure myself he is mine) and my heart was trampled, he would have been worth every moment of pain, for every moment of happiness he has given me. And for the sons we created together.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

-William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18

I love you, Joel. Thank you for being brave enough to make the first move. Thank you for being patient enough to wait for me to stop being an idiot. Thank you for asking me to marry you, and facing my Dad. :D  Thank you for loving me, constantly, demonstratively, even though your life is more complicated with me in it.  Thank you for being the most amazing husband - the husband I'd always imagined having. My Gilbert Blythe. My Mr Knightley. My Bingley and Darcy. My Joel.

Thank you for being the most incredible role model our sons could ever have as they grow up. My fondest, deepest hope is that they grow into men like you. And that they grow up always feeling the way we all do about you now - that you, more than anything else, you make our lives amazing.

Thank you for loving me, and letting me love you back. Please, don't ever stop. I promise I won't. For as long as men can breathe and eyes can see...