Partnership

Making walls and curtains.

I've been doing this trendy 7 Days of Gratitude challenge on Facebook. It's hardly a challenge to come up with 3 things every day. It's more of a challenge to limit myself! I am so keenly aware of how fortunate I am in my life and in the place and time I live. But today I am only listing one thing: Markus.

I am grateful for my partner, Markus.

I say 'partner' because although he is also my husband, the father of our children, my friend and my support, I have recently come to understand a bit more of what partnership is. It was always there, of course, since the moment I met him and felt a lifelong sense of searching come to an end. But I haven't always trusted it as I am learning to do, now. Our partnership feels to me like an invisible but very strong network of cables linking our pasts, presents and futures; our joys, sorrows and frustrations; our closeness and distance. It's the foundation -- the connection that doesn't go away regardless of the details. It's the kind of thing we talked about when we got married, but are only slowly learning to understand. It's the certainty that we will be together always and that even when this life (and each other) seem totally intolerable, he is still my safety net and I am his. We are each other's home.

So today, on Markus' 45th birthday, as we continue growing blindly together, I am grateful for his existence in the world and my life, and for our partnership.