It’s our 28th wedding anniversary today. We started dating when we were 18 years old. I never thought I would live past 30 so it’s quite surreal for me to be sitting here today writing this at 52, healed in so many ways, surrounded (figuratively, of course, because Covid) by loving and supportive people, and so grateful to be quarantined with my two favorite humans. Rob has born the brunt of my trauma. If there’s a thing called “secondary trauma,” he experienced that. If there’s not, then I’m coining the phrase now. More than anyone else, he has had to witness the destruction and the pain that abuse inflicted on my soul. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must be on a daily basis. There were periods of time, early in our marriage, where he thought he would come home to find me dead. He’s picked up my pieces and held them for me until I could find the strength to hold them myself again. When I couldn’t find anything good about myself he asked me to listen to the song Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars every day until the message got through…by the way, it took almost a year. He’s laughed with me, cried with me, carried me, distracted me, supported me, challenged me, fought with me, and loved me in a way that no one else has. He is the best dad I could have ever imagined for our daughter. He is my person. He will always be my greatest gift and I am so grateful that he was able to, ever so patiently, knock down every wall I had erected and find his way to me.💗
