Terry’s Vows

The hardest part of starting a story is the first line. Which is a problem, because I am a man uncertain about a great many things. What the day has in store. What the future holds in this blink that is our time on earth. Where my shoes have gone, despite swearing I took them off in the bathroom ten minutes ago. I suppose the point is, I have spent the past 5 months uncertain on how to start these vows. Certainty, it turns out, is a rare thing.

But there is one thing I am now and forever defiantly certain of. That you are the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Emma, falling in love with you was the easiest thing I've ever done. The very first time my eyes found yours, the only thought that screamed through my head was "DO NOT MESS THIS UP BECAUSE OH MY GOD THIS IS THE WOMAN YOU NEED TO MARRY." I've been successful in that task for the last five years, so I figure I have a pretty good shot of making it to the finish line in about three minutes. Five with an intermission.

Being your partner has been, and always will be, the greatest adventure of my life. When we look at our darling cats and think "these are just two little guys who live with us", I see you and then I marvel that this brilliant, gentle, caring soul with the brightest of hearts is somehow making a life with me. That you can look at me, flaws and all, and say without hesitation: "Yup. This silly guy is all mine."

And when I try to make sense of it… of you, of us… I keep coming back to the same impossible math. There's a belief that people are destined for each other, and I've doubted it my whole life. I've always thought there was something magical in the randomness of the universe — that out of the billions of roads our lives could have taken, out of all the stories that could have been written, ours is this one. That I get to stand with you in front of the people we love most is a percent of a percent of a percent. 

Which leaves me with only two conclusions. 

Either I am the luckiest man in any universe that could exist… unlikely, given how many times you've beaten me in board games you're playing for literally the very first time. Or there is one more thing I can be certain of: that I will love you in every universe, in every lifetime. Under every forever and beautiful sky. Even if our love is fate, it will always be a rare and beautiful thing. Exactly like you.

And so, as we begin this next chapter of our story, I promise to always and forever be your best friend, your confidant, your cheerleader, your partner, and your husband. Your silliest goose when you need to laugh, your strongest bear when you need to cry, and your big dog every day in between.

I promise to always be growing with you. To work every day to be the best version of myself — the one you've always seen in me. In the big ways and the small. To make sure our home is a place where you always feel safe and free from chaos… and to apologize when I inevitably let some in by leaving an ADHD pile on the couch because I PROMISE I WAS CLEANING, JUST SOMEWHERE ELSE. To build a life we are proud to lead, with honesty, humility, trust, and compassion.

I promise to always stand by your side. To fight any battle the world may throw at us, be it the scariest hanging light at a restaurant or any doubt that you are anything other than the beautiful, resilient human being you have always been.

I promise to love you wholly, deeply, and completely. On our best days and our worst. In sickness and in health. In these years of our youth, and when we have grown old enough to be mistaken for the skeletons left on the lawn many months after Halloween has passed.

And finally, I promise to walk beside you on every step of the journey that is our lives. And when we reach the final page of our time on this mortal coil, I will know it isn't goodbye. Just the beginning of the story of how we say hello again in the forever and beautiful sky.

Most monologues don't have an epilogue. But then again, most vows aren't a monologue. So if there is an ending I hope for this moment, it's this: that Mr. and Mrs. Fables stood together, united in their newfound bliss. And perhaps it was in that moment they realized that to live, would be an awfully big adventure.

So, my darling Emma, let us go then, you and I.