Nothing to Write About

I sat down to write this a few times before I actually wrote it.

August 20th is a special day in my life. Four years ago, my husband and I gathered loved ones from across the country and multiple continents for one of the best parties of our lifetime. On my grandparents' wedding anniversary. Where my parents also got married. And when you own the venue, it means the after-party goes for as long as you'd like.

There are so many vignettes in the chaos of joy of that lovely Saturday. My grandfather's presence via the 1966 pale yellow Ford Thunderbird we opted for instead of a photobooth. My childhood priest reciting a non-Wedding Crashers bible verse after a dear friend read Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII. The horses that lined up at the fence like they were part of the wedding party as we said our vows. How our British friends went on a late night adventure to buy gas station cigarettes using only the flashlight of an iPhone. Let me tell you, dear readers, that open bar never ran dry.

That was one day. This is the part where I try to write about the remaining 1,460.

Love and marriage are harder for me to write about. My best writing tends to start where something is unresolved — I have to work it over, kneading it like it's dough on the counter. Give me a mess and I can find the sentence in it.

But stability doesn't perform well for me on the page.

I've always joked that in more complex, textured conversations I need 3-5 business days to process my feelings. Forever an intentional introspective, I want to get to the root of the sentiment and externalize it back. I want it to be known. One thing about me, you'll always know how I feel.

So when something doesn't have rough edges, when it isn't costing me anything to hold onto, there's nothing to metabolize. It just is. It sits there, whole and unremarkable, and my instinct is to look right past it for the next thing that hurts.

When the plot of a marriage is not an HBO mini series, it can feel mundane. It's a coffee handed to me first thing. Plants watered and laundry folded. A full tank of gas. The favors he offers before I can feel the shape of needing them — the kind where he says, "I wouldn't offer if I wasn't already prepared to do it" (when "it" is usually running out for an emergency snack I happen to vocalize a desire for). In itself, a small vow, said so often it's stopped sounding like one.

Roadblocks cleared before I hit them, literally and otherwise: errands run, logistics solved, a path made clean enough I don't notice I was ever driving toward an obstacle at all. You don't notice a road unless it has potholes. A smooth one just gets driven on, day after day, without a second thought. Which is the entire design. The absence of friction isn't absence of effort — it's the effort incarnate.

So this year, I want to just say the true thing: I have a partner who makes my life easier in a hundred ways I've trained myself not to notice, because noticing them was never necessary. I've never had to negotiate for basic consideration. I don't have to write my way out of this because he has - consistently for years - simply not done things that would give me anything to write about.

Off to bet it all on the ponies this weekend. Won't make much money, but the company will be worth it. Truly a special place I'm glad I get to share with some of my favorite people.

Until soon,

Sarah