Yet there I was, earning desperately needed extra money ... thinking I could avoid the drama and the theological sinkhole -- though I attempted to keep my head above the raging river and tread water, I realised I was beginning to be pulled under.

It wasn't exactly that I hadn't noticed you. I had. You were a male who kept everything that mattered to him close to his heart, and getting past your defenses and your privacy was not something that interested me. The only connection I felt upon meeting your eyes was a quiet, unspoken understanding that we were of the same species: 2 people who took white anglo saxon christianity a little too disrespectfully, and 2 people who knew not to talk too much of their personal opinions ... for their own good and out of respect for those around them.

We both had been raised in fairly fundamental homes, and we both saw the deceit that the faithful perpetuated: "our blessings come as a result of serving God; our tragedies result from doubt and disobedience." Hypocrisy was commonplace throughout our childhood, and in spite of the fact that many of the chosen were blind to it, we were both acutely (painfully) aware of our own flawed inconsistencies, as well as those we witnessed in our family member's lives.

I began to silently watch you-- I saw what interaction interested you, I saw how you related to people , I saw how often you wanted to be alone.

And watching you, I fell in love.

You were a complicated person: an artist, a loner, a deep thinker who didn't take basic premises for granted. You were handsome, and your eyes conveyed a blazing intensity mixed with sensitivity and a vulnerability -- a combination that nearly frightened me away. You conveyed the world in your face; you spoke silently of need and passion and understanding ... I understood you.

I needed you from the beginning. I needed you to hold my head above the sloshy river of the bullshit jesus -- I needed you to ask me hard questions; to doubt before having faith; to keep me intellectually stimulated and always seeking the bigger picture.

I had been changing shape for years and was nearly ready to liquefy into a broken clump. I had held my body upright and in a predictable, presentable position .... for my own good. I had become who they wanted me to be; a future missionary destined to a hopeless, mindless life as a servant of the Loyd .... for my own good. -- I could be anything they ever needed, and the more I re-wrote who I really was, I discovered I didn't like who I was becoming and that I wanted to get out.

By becoming my friend and placing no expectations on me, you allowed me to be the person/s that I was. By accepting the diagnosis and the accompanying dramatics, you showed me how much I mean to you -- how much we all meant to you -- how important I was as one, but also as many.

Our times together became refreshing, enlightening -- our conversations were beautiful and full and anything was acceptable to think or to feel ....... and oh! what freedom was mine! The freedom to doubt and to question; the freedom to think and to disbelieve -- ever denied to me since my childhood, these freedoms were gifts to an orphan who still worried that if she said the wrong thing she would force you away forever.

Through the years we grew into a beautiful love that was beyond expression. I had never felt such a longing to be a part of someone; I had never felt that I was born to fit into this person's soul -- that we interconnected not only in a spiritual way and an emotional/intellectual way, but also on some very tangible, biochemical level, and that we were specifically made for one other -- hand crafted by design.

Words cannot express the passion I feel on a daily level for you, my husband. Touch is an attempt to show you these things, but even it falls short. I love you with a profound and inexplicable rush of emotion that swells up in my belly and bursts out my throat with a noise that can't define itself.

You are the most important person in my life -- my friend, my companion, my fellow seeker, my spiritual co-seeker, my own soul. You are more than my "other half," for you have become a part of me and I exist with you as your wife.

I love you and I am in love with you. I am so very sorry for the many horrible experiences we have suffered through -- absences due to my psychiatric hospitalizations, bankruptcy due to medical bills, emotional manipulation and blackmail and alters with knives .... I cannot make those things go away from either of our memories or our pasts. But I can (and I Do) promise to give you the very best of the future. I promise to be strong and to continue healing; I promise to someday become well.

I don't ever want to live without you, but know that you will always be a part of me; a part of every breath I inhale and every thought I think -- for we have become one, and we have made a child who is a combination of each of us, and nothing can take away who were are. Thank you, my beloved husband, for your love, your patience, your loyalty and your wisdom. Thank you for 4 years worth of gigles, and bayball games; for 4 years of back tickles and head scratches. Thank you for never giving up. I love you, and I am proud to be your wife.

Happy 4th wedding anniversary to us!
(Clink!)