Love Story

Yesterday, my sister-in-law posted the song Justin sang to me at my wedding—it’s sitting there on her blog right this moment. The version she selected is beautiful, simple, well-sung. But it’s nothing like the version I remember.

I remember a song sung like a promise and an altar, both at once. I remember a man who’d just become a man making a man’s commitment. But I also remember a boy so star-crossed in love that just the sight of me left him unable to control his voice, his knees, his tear-dripping eyes.

I wrote about this moment on our ninth wedding anniversary. I just reread the post. I think I could write about that moment every six months. Or every day.

There’s something in a person that wants, more than anything, to be loved, to be wanted, and to be cherished. I could say that this moment, this 3 minutes in history, was that moment for me, that moment when I knew with no doubts that someone loved me, wanted me, cherished me.

And I’d be partially right.

Only partially because for me that moment has not been singular. That moment shines like it does, not because of it’s uniqueness, but because of it’s representative-ness. Every day I feel loved, wanted, and cherished—many times even more intensely than I did as a stunning bride in a size six dress.

I watched Julie and Julia tonight—an adorable movie. People’ve been telling me to watch it for months (it’s about blogging). I did identify with the blogging parts, certainly, but I couldn’t help feeling a kinship with Julia Childs, a woman who lived life in a beautiful partnership with her husband, so faithfully and extravagantly loved.

Midway through the movie I looked at Justin and said, “You know, if someone ever made a movie about me or wrote a book about you, it wouldn’t be about me or you. It would have to be about us.”

I think that’s true. I think a story about me would have to be about the man who loves me, too. Because my story is a love story.