Kind Like Katey

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary.

Eighteen years of marriage. Eighteen years of loving each other, driving each other absolutely crazy, laughing at things that probably aren’t funny to anyone else, and somehow continuing to choose each other through it all.

I almost didn’t write about our anniversary. I thought, Maybe I’ll wait until twenty years. That’s a bigger milestone. That’s worth a story.

But why?

Why do we feel like we have to wait for a nice, round number to celebrate something wonderful?

Stacy and I have been through a lot together. We’ve raised a family, made memories, taken adventures, dealt with heartbreak, and faced things neither of us could have imagined when we said “I do.”

And let me tell you, marriage isn’t always romantic dinners and holding hands while walking into the sunset.

Sometimes it’s forgetting your wallet twenty-five minutes into a camping trip. Sometimes it’s getting on each other’s last damn nerve. Sometimes it’s sitting together in silence because there just aren’t any words.

And sometimes it’s having someone beside you when life gets really, really scary.

Today was supposed to be about celebrating our anniversary. Instead, I made the mistake of looking at some medical test results, and just like that, my mind went somewhere I didn’t want it to go.

Cancer has a way of doing that. It doesn’t check the calendar. It doesn’t care if it’s your birthday, your anniversary, or a perfectly ordinary Sunday.

It just barges right in.

I hate that I looked at those results today. I hate that something I can’t control managed to take up space in my head on a day that should have been about us.

But then I started thinking about those eighteen years.

All the ordinary days we probably took for granted. All the little moments that didn’t seem important at the time. All the things we’ve survived together.

And I realized something.

Eighteen years isn’t a stepping stone to twenty. It’s eighteen years of our lives.

That’s 18 years of memories, mistakes, laughter, tears, and love. Eighteen years of being a team, even on the days when we probably didn’t particularly like our teammate. 😂

I don’t know what the next two years will bring. Hell, none of us knows what tomorrow will bring.

But I do know that today, we’ve been married for eighteen years.

And that’s worth celebrating.

So, happy anniversary, Stacy.

Thank you for loving me through all the different versions of myself. The happy one, the stubborn one, the emotional one, and the one who occasionally makes life a little more interesting than either of us planned.

I love you.

Here’s to eighteen years of us. ❤️

And here’s to not waiting for twenty to appreciate what we have today.