When I met the love of my life, I planned to live in a lighthouse in Maine or Massachusetts, own an intimidating dog, write thick, provocative novels, and, most of all, stay single.

Due to the absence of two working parents, I grew up in a house where love was presented as a form of torture — pinned to the carpet, my brothers’ spit dangling from their mouths, sucking it back up, and doing it again. The goal was to get fat saliva as close to my face as possible. The result was always a splat between my eyes.

Still, a forearm rug burn was preferred to a random punch in the back of the head.

The display of affection from my sisters was marginally better — the violence contained to a hair yank, but generally, it came in biting words — the kind of words meant to mortally wound. 

Homelife, Lord of the Flies style.

There were other things, too, things that made me turn myself inside out, a calloused exoskeleton to protect my heart, the blood in my veins a frozen sludge.

It was better that way. Safer.

I was nineteen and a half before I got my first kiss…from him.

I hadn’t wanted to go on that blind date. My roommate and his workmate made it happen, an all-day date in a cabin in the shadow of the jagged Rockies.

We drank Arizona’s, shared Subway sandwiches and pizza in Park City, and played board games.

He was so cute—long curly hair, thick mutton chops, bright smiley eyes. He grinned as he listened to my daydreams.

I wanted to own a convertible BMW and drive along the California coast with the top down.

We had a lot in common. He said he also loved Seattle… Pearl Jam, and Depeche Mode. And I was sad Kurt Cobain had died the year before, too. We connected.

On this marathon blind date, we went on a Scavenger Hunt in the woods armed with a disposable camera to snap pictures from a list.

We laughed hysterically at a metal sign stuck in fallen pine needles that read, “Italian Parking Only.” I still have that picture.

By the time I met him, I already felt worn, bitter, and hard, with a black belt in sarcasm, allergic to touch.

I believed I was fundamentally flawed, horribly, emotionally scarred, and stunted. Unlovable.

I tried to break up with him twice and a half-hearted third time, convinced I could only infect him with bad, but he wouldn’t let me.

When we were together, we only talked, always talked, couldn’t shut up!

We gabbed during movies, at a Baseball game, and at restaurants well past closing time.

He wanted to know everything about me. He needed to understand what I thought. We chatted about everything that mattered, made the things that didn’t seem more important.

It was the kissing that finally hushed us. And then that’s all we did. We couldn’t stop.

Time didn’t exist, neither did jobs, school, doctor appointments, nor the forty-mile distance we lived apart—nothing except clothing and the sliver of light between us became an obstacle.

He loved me. He loved me when I wasn’t sure I could return the sentiment, and he said he didn’t care.

He loved me even when I picked fights and screamed at him for minor infractions—the real slight being that I couldn’t trust him because he loved me.

Still, he did.

He loved me in a purely, unadulterated, tart and sweet kind of way until I believed him.

Then he blew apart that tightly wound exoskeleton I’d constructed and melted the ice in my veins. He woke up my heart.

Last December, we celebrated our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been together that long.

It feels like we’ve been together three or maybe five years tops.

He is the love of my life, and I am his.

Even now, even as we both work from home and are only a few steps away from each other. Every. Single. Day.

Even now, as he snores so loud, I need earplugs—an air purifier blaring and a fan kicking in white noise to muffle his sound.

Even now, as I’m still needy and, he must give me a breakdown, a list of why I have value.

We are in love.

Once upon a time, I imagined a life of solitude, expecting to find contentment in my own company, create a fictitious love across empty blank pages. But then he came along.

In the years since we said, ‘I do,’ it’s clear that my old dreams are pale compared to the reality we’ve built together.

Life with him is straightforward and honest, marked by shared smiles, conversations that run late into the night, and the comfort of knowing we’re there for each other.

It’s not a fairy tale—it’s something far better. It’s real life, it’s our life, and it’s a happy one.