THE LEAST ROMANTIC ANNIVERSARY POST EVER
Double Exposure Image on Friggen Film by Yan Palmer
I’ve been in a low grade agitated state of panic since I woke up this morning.
I got up, the house still quiet, 4 of our kids are off in Ontario having adventures, our eldest is 13 now so she does this sleeping thing that is just magical and Katherine well, she will sleep as long as I let her.
I love when the house is quiet like this early in the morning. It’s when the words come most easily. It’s when I’m most honest with myself, when I have the most to give. So by all accounts I should have been the most chill.
And yet here I am. Kind of off my game, feeling the pressure to create something. And not just something, but something special.
Why?
Because today is our wedding anniversary.
Nick and Katherine North Wedding Portrait by Dana Pugh
This is the day when I express to the world just how amazing my wife is, how lucky we are, how no one makes my heart go pitter patter like hers does. It’s when I tell her that no one makes me feel more safe than she does, that she is my sun and my moon and all of the things.
And she is. God she is. I am so lucky.
The woman is a badass boss, she can write like the dickens and have you seen her? My wife is funny, sharp, sexy, brilliant and compassionate. She also happens to be an amazing mother, and provider for our family.
All of those things are true.
But that’s only one half of the story.
The other half is that even though she is all of these amazing things, and I am as close to perfect as one human can be, marriage is still a ferocious beast.
We fight, she cries, I yell, she yells, I am a grouchy old man, that’s still part of things. A real part of things, like we had a fight in the bath last night about absolutely NOTHING and I’m pretty sure it was my fault, but I don’t even quite know what happened.
So when I woke up this morning to my quiet sleepy house, and thought about coming on the internet to declare my undying love to the love of my life, it made me panicky. Not because my love is not undying. Not because Katherine North isn’t the one I want to spend my life with always and forever and even after that.
But because…
I don’t want to be another person not telling you the full story on the internet.
I don’t want to be another person making you feel bad that your relationship isn’t everything that instagram says it should be.
Instead I want to tell you that we fight, a lot
We’re complicated, passionate humans, and she’s not nearly as romantic, or touchy feely as I’d like her to be, and I’m not nearly as secure and independent as she’d like me to be. We have so many flaws as a couple, there’s no doubt about it.
But I want every single one of her flaws. I want her “when I’m sick I only throw my dirty Kleenex in a pile on the ground by my bed, even if you put the trashcan right there.” And I want her “need to have all the flowers everywhere” and I want her “talking about opt-in’s and launch strategy in the bath when I’m very naked and trying to do things other than talk launch strategies” and I want her “late for almost everything and calling it fashionable.”
All of these things will likely drive me crazy for ever and always and even after that. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So maybe this is the least romantic anniversary post ever, but I love you Katherine. And I’m so grateful to be yours, even when you’re making me late.