Juliet and I at a wedding of dear friends in October of last year
And, here we are...once again, the anniversary of our glorious 2009 day in Austin has arrived. I have no idea what Hallmark occasion a 14th anniversary is, but 14 is a number that lives in infamy for me. My parents' marriage lasted but fourteen years. And while our union only resembles my parents' marriage in that it is (was) legally binding, the number remains superstitiously significant to me.
I am nervous even typing this letter today. My first marriage lasted far less than fourteen years, so until now, I have only known the failures associated with these unions. Indeed, I have great examples to follow. Our grandparents, your parents, and even my parents' second marriages have all stood the test of time. However, this is not a rational premise that I am elucidating. This is an emotional, painful, and scary milestone for me. I sometimes feel like I have been at odds with this ghost of what could have been for most of my life. Perhaps it rests in some deep-seated fear of loss. It may be the knowledge that we have been so fortunate and that good fortune, like glory, is always fleeting. Why can't I rest easy in the great love that we obviously share? While it seems so simple to enjoy the treasure of our shared existence, like some white whale of fate, I am seeking the mythical reassurance of 15 years.
These love letters over this span of milestones have pinpointed the countless ways that I adore you, Juliet. You know it, our friends and family, even strangers reading this website, will vouch for it. This year's letter is intended to illuminate some vulnerabilities in your 52-year-old husband. For the sake of what? Because I imagine I am not alone. I am guessing that many men my age, in happy marriages, begin to wonder what the demise looks like. We start to build thick walls to protect ourselves from the hurt associated with the loss of loved ones, friends, and even a spouse. As I have aged, you have seen me become more strategic in my driving. I strategize and anticipate the movements of cars and maximize the avoidance of risk. This wiser Michael has also become aware that life generates obstacles intended to cull the weak and the brash from the earth. I play hours of strategy games now (as I have for years) to help me keep my mind always looking at the next move. This has served me well in business, travel, life, love, and survival.
Now, at fourteen years, I feel myself and my defenses on high alert. Is this a residual defect from our forced isolation in 2020? Have we become so inseparable as to have initiated some self-imposed Stockholm Syndrome? Or could the answer be much more straightforward? Perhaps you just mean more to me than anything that I've encountered in my life. And that I feel myself becoming less capable of keeping you safe in an ever more dangerous America.
I cannot regulate my love or instincts to protect you from the dangers of the world. So, we travel onwards, as we do. Nothing good has ever come from hiding in the shadows and washing the fear down with copious amounts of doubt and insecurity. We cannot write the symphony of our joyous union if we do not know the language of love. Ours has always been a deep and harmonious curiosity along with a stubborn sense of wonder. It has served us so well that it could even be seen as grace. And if so, who are we to think otherwise or live in any other quadrant of the graph of human existence ?
When we make fifteen years, I will give thanks and dance in the joy that some other vestige of childhood insecurity will have been vanquished. In the meantime, I will tread lightly, hold on tightly to your every word and do my best to believe I am worthy of your continued love and attention. 2009 is a placeholder for these letters. But it is not the beginning, and now, certainly not the end. And to borrow a line that has been living with me for months, "Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
And rage we shall!
Happy Anniversary Juliet