Always and without the "if"

Dear Husband,
I'm not sorry I ditched you this morning to go on a running date with the Mumford boys. Marcus set the pace and I settled into the trail for an hour and wrote in my head, brave and uncensored, the opposite of how I write everywhere else.  I wrote a piece about the wreck that marriage can turn me into, how the neediness and vulnerability and unmet expectations can make me the craziest kind of angry--the wounded kind.

You and I, we have only a handful of precious friends who will admit with us the depths of the scars, the sacrifice, the disappointment, the insanity that accompanies even the most grounded of marriages. Ours is a good one, I think, but I don't have to tell you, it's still totally screwed up sometimes. (If this was still a post in my head, I'd use the f-bomb.)

I'm having one of those days where I have to convince myself that it's not the end of the world to feel misunderstood and unloved. Because I've certainly cried about it like it's the end of the world, even though I swear I'm not much of a crier. More of a yeller, actually. But the yelling thing seems to make everything worse. And we need things to get better, so I'll try to stick to the crying.

I listened to "Hopeless Wanderer" at least three times during the run, and it's possible I sang out loud (loud enough for the squirrels to give me the stink eye) as the song wound toward the end. I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I'm under.

To love the skies I'm under. We've talked about what that means for us in the geographic sense--how we'll make the best home and life we can whether in Alexandria or Portland or Cleveland or (lordhelpus) even Biloxi. But today, for me, it also means finding a way to be grateful and hopeful and whole, in spite of feeling like my heart's been shredded like leaf mulch and now beats faintly in a thin layer across the lawn. Today it means moving toward you when it would be far, far easier to hide.

I know this is a pretty crappy excuse for a love letter. A normal person would list the eleventy-one ways you're wonderful or gush unabashedly on about all the reasons to love you. A normal person wouldn't choose Valentine's Day to write about how profoundly difficult marriage can be. I guess the good news is, after 17 years of marriage, you aren't counting on me to be normal.

Listen, let me just steal a few lines from yet another a Mumford song, one of your favorites.

And in the middle of the night

I may watch you go

There'll be no value in the strength
Of walls that I have grown 

There'll be no comfort in the shade
Of the shadows thrown   

You may not trust the promises
Of the change I'll show

But I'd be yours if you'd be mine

So love the one you hold
And I will be your gold
To have and to hold
A lover of the light

No more growing walls or throwing shadows, and I'm going to keep the promises. You'll see.
And as if you didn't know, I'm already yours, always and without the if.
Love,

Jo

P.S. This afternoon, your personal assistant (me) ordered a rockin' Valentine's Day present for you to give to your wife (also me): a new pair of kicks and some chocolate mint energy gels. You know how I hate Valentine's Day (like HATE. IT.) But I'm clearly not above using the V-day guilt trip to score some new running shoes. Sorry/ You're welcome.

::

This bizarre but heartfelt love letter is linked up to the love fest going on at Momalom. And in the spirit of Love it Up, I thought I'd share with you three love songs that won't make you want to hurl. You're totally welcome:

•  Be My Thrill - The Weepies 
•  40 Dogs - Bob Schneider 
• Lover of the Light - Mumford and Sons