The original date of publication for this essay is Sunday, October 11th. It is the 13th of what’s intended to be a year’s worth of essays, published on Sundays. That intention, like everything, is subject to change.
Last week’s essay: On Time, Which Is Not Running Out
As regular readers know, my wedding was yesterday. For the wedding highlight reel (a cultural phenomenon of which discussion is temporarily postponed), the videographer suggested my wife and I write one another a letter and read the letters we each wrote on video while we got ready. So, in place of this week’s Sunday Essay, or rather, as this week’s Sunday Essay, I thought I’d publish the letter I wrote to Emma. Yes, it’s self-indulgent. That’s the point of this whole series.
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Emma,
I hope it isn’t raining when you read this. Not because something as small as rain could ever ruin our wedding day, but because you deserve the sun.
I’m glad the night we met was such an occasion. I suppose it couldn’t have been otherwise, but I’m glad everything was so magical that specific night. I don’t know if there were snow flurries, but in my memory, there are. I don’t know if it was a bit warm for an Indiana December, but in my memory, it is. I don’t know if you grabbed my hand as we walked up the stairs into the party, but in my memory, you do. What I do know is that I checked my tie—the yellow and gray and black one—in the mirror above the sink, turned off that beat-up plastic-covered light above the mirror, closed that old wooden door, and walked down the stairs into a whole new life.
When I returned to that dorm room, six or seven or eight hours later, I dreamed about today. I laid in my bed, a couple feet from the ceiling, warm and happy and drunk on wine, and I dreamed about marrying Emma. I didn’t know what it would look like. I couldn’t have ever known what it would look like. I didn’t know what a wonderful dream it was. But I dreamt it. And here we are.
As perfect as that night was, I know the years since have not been perfect. Because years aren’t perfect. Because we aren’t perfect. There are fights. There are bad days. There are lonely flights, and windy mornings, and late nights spent trying to figure it all out. There are moments of growth, and moments of frustration, and moments when we tear ourselves apart for not being the things for each other that we want to be. There are pandemics. There are hurricanes. There is rain. These things have been. These things will be. And we’ll keep going, through the midst of it all.
I’m grateful you’ve kept going. Thanks for that. I know it hasn’t been easy. Thanks for flying all over the country to see me for those two and a half years. Thanks for standing out in the cold with me all those minutes in the bitter winter so we could say goodnight just a little later. Thanks for having my back when I try all the things I feel like I just need to try. Thanks for falling with me when I fall. Thanks for picking up my pieces when I crumble. Thanks for growing when I need you to grow. Thanks for making me grow when I need to.
You have a way of being there that goes beyond just being there. You’re so invested in everyone’s happiness. You want everyone to have the sun. You want it with such an earnestness. You want it with such a truth. And you give the sun to so many people. Most of all me. You give me the sun. Especially when it’s raining.
So while I can’t give you the sun today, I hope you get it anyway, and whether it shines or hides, I’ll give you myself, which is everything I can give. And no matter what rains fall, no matter what winds blow, no matter how hot it gets in Texas or how much snow piles up in South Bend, you will always have me. And I will do everything I can to always give you the sun.
I love you. I’m so lucky that you love me too.
Stuart
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Next week’s essay: On Knoxville, Asheville, and the America We Do Not Know
