nicotortorella • 21,276 likes
today is march ninth, twenty twenty five. 39. exactly seven years ago i married you, bethany. and you married me. the day was ridiculous. we were. apparently, every seven years the cycle of life starts over. cells renew, stories shift, old skins shed, and something new takes root. so what comes next?
when i scroll back through my phone’s photo roll, click on months, and go all the way back, i hesitate. full disclosure it’s hard to see what we were when we spend all our time now being who we are. the versions we were feel like ghosts, a past life barely recognizable. woah. we did it all and there's still so much more to do.
in the car today, after our little anniversary meal at our favorite spot in town while my mom and brother were back at the house with the kids, i looked at you and said, “what would it look like to hang out with us from 7 years ago for a full day?” we laughed, then both at once said we’d be annoyed with them. lol.
and thank god for them. they threw themselves into love, into mistakes, into long nights and reckless mornings, into systems of belief and definitives, into questions, into dreaming without fear of what came next. they built the bridge for us to cross. i want to hold them first. then i want to shake them, tell them to slow down, to stop chasing the horizon like it could ever be caught. but maybe that was the point. maybe they had to run so we could arrive.
and now, here we are. this version of us, as mom and dad. this is by far the best one yet. we used to chase seasons, and now we’re here. in florida, in march, and it turns out this is it. the air is warm but not heavy, the ocean is close, and the days stretch wide open in the kind of light that makes everything feel like it’s exactly where it should be. let’s never stop making babies, and watch them make babies, and live forever, barefoot, watching the lines of our people continue to blossom.
happy anniversary. every cycle, every life, every beginning. i choose you big dog. i choose you. @bethanycmeyers