Anniversary

C,
Ours is my favorite story, it is also one of my favorite secrets. As our Anniversary looms over (Oct 4th!)  I decided to finally spill the beans on this little blog and share just how much adventure you've brought to my life. Out of all my favorite things about you, one of my most favorite is that you are a man of few words.We both know that I've always been the verbose one out of the two of us, I'm still learning to express myself in your subtle ways. You express your love for me so grandly in your own way that my words seem so trivial. Your gestures of love without needing to say anything make me weak in the knees even now. This season of our life is full of excitement, even with this bump we call deployment and I can't wait to celebrate our commitment to spend our lives together once you're finally home.

I can't wait to hold you, laugh with you, brew beer together, fight with you, thrive with you and unfold with you every day for the rest of my life. I love this bond between us on our best days and our worst. My hope is that we never stop changing. I also hope that we never stop growing, challenging one another, breaking, shedding and prodding into new parts of each other and ourselves. You and me, we fit together like puzzle pieces my love. All the parts of me, the ones I'm proud of and especially the ones I'm not so proud of, blossom because you are in my life. This love of ours, this relationship, has been one of the most challenging things I've done, and after all these years (four! Can you believe it?!) there is absolutely nothing I'm more proud of.

Without you, I'd only be a shadow version of myself C. I am me because I have you. I am a better friend, partner, and human because of you. Because we can't celebrate this milestone across from each other chugging beer (me beating you at it, naturally), eating a delicious meal we prepare together and seeing your handsome face in the flickering candlelight, my words will carry us over for the next 233 days. And to all this, your eyes will moisten and you will reach for the screen and tell me that you've loved me for so long. And tell you what my love, that will be absolutely grand.

So here's to the miracle that we are here and now. To this season of our life, of conscious committment. And heres to all those laughs we still haven't laughed, the lines on our faces that are still to come from staying up a little too late and some leaner moments that we have still to soldier through, and the thrills we still have to earn and learn. Here's to the life we've made together, full of adventure.

I can't wait to dress in white for you and hand you my whole heart. For the rest of our lives. How becoming it is to have touched the green light.

Yours. Forever.
N.

PS. All pictures are taken by Amy Sandoval while we were on our vacation to Virginia Beach.