Anniversary

On Opening to Partnership, Growth and Love

Twenty-five years ago today I married David Sens.

Not because he was perfect. Because I loved him. And because he loved me.

I wasn’t perfect. I know this because my Sun is in Virgo. So I am constantly aiming for perfection. And you cannot constantly be aiming for perfection if you are perfect.

After 25 years together I have just enough perspective to understand that we love each other, not in spite of our imperfections, but specifically because of them. It is our imperfections that allow us to love.

I am going to say this again. It is our imperfections that allow us to love.

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When I met Dave in the Santa Barbara County Clinic in April 1997, a visitor looking to volunteer there, I was well and truly lost. I had graduated from college in 1994 and had yet to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I showed up at the clinic I was considering a career in nursing. Dave was a nurse. And he was in charge of the volunteer program.

The reason I was having trouble figuring out a career path was because I was having trouble figuring out who I was. It is impossible to choose a path if you don’t know who is choosing the path. Dave helped me discover myself. He didn’t tell me who I was. And I didn’t become who I am because of him.

Dave opened me to openness.

Dave was a Californian. I was born in Alabama and grew up in both Atlanta and Montgomery. Depending on how well my mother was doing at the time. It was just the two of us. Like many people in the South, I grew up in a very conservative evangelical church. But the church my mother found for us was more than just conservative. It offered her security in exchange for freedom. They helped us as long as we followed their rules.

My church told me what music I could listen to. Who I could date. At times, they helped my mother financially by controlling her money (which was so limited we often depended on the church to feed us and pay our electricity bill). When I was accepted into Emory University my pastor asked to have lunch with me. I thought he was going to congratulate me. Instead, he told me to turn down the offer. Turn down the financial aid. And go to Columbia Bible College in South Carolina instead. Find a husband. Find a missionary to marry.

I don’t expect you to understand any of this if you haven’t been exposed to it. But here is what I want you to try and understand: When you have been taught since you were born that if you make the correct choice God will love you and if you make the incorrect choice God will send you to Hell, then life looks and feels like a very high stakes Game of trying to keep God happy.

When I met Dave, I was just beginning to question the Game. I was feeling pulled toward freedom but still wondering if freedom was Hell disguised as Disneyland.

Dave showed me that love could be given freely.

This was a heresy.

Surely I had to earn it.

Surely I had to be worthy of it.

Surely I had to make an exchange for it. My soul for love.

Dave loved me before I loved him.

He is okay with me telling you this. In fact he tells everyone this. There is a story about hydrangeas he gave me that makes this point very clear and makes me feel very, very embarrassed. I am not telling you the story. He can start his own Substack.

This was the only way it could have been for us. I needed to be loved not because I loved him, not because I needed him, not because of anything I was or did, but because I was me. Imperfect and lost and me.

And that space, that wide open space to be so very imperfect and still loved was . . . the space I needed to be born again. But for real this time.

And he was cute. That didn’t hurt.

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The photo is blurry. The magnolias are wilting. Dave is suffocating in the Alabama heat. There is so much imperfection.

Dave and I were too broke to afford a wedding photographer. My grandmother’s neighbor, who was an amateur photographer, offered to photograph our wedding and we jumped at the offer. I remember sitting on my bed and excitedly opening the package of photos (this was before digital) and realizing, with horror, that nearly every photo was out of focus.

But nothing could have been a better first lesson in marriage. Everything is imperfection. Even beauty. Nothing will be clear. Not him. Not you. And there is only just this moment. You can try and capture it. But it is a breath. It comes. It goes. The only perfect moment is this one. And it isn’t perfect because it is perfect. It is perfect because it is this moment and this moment is all there is. All there ever is.

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Dave got sick on November 7, 2011.

I had just finished my pediatric residency at the end of June 2011. We had moved from New Hampshire to Texas. To start our life. As if everything up until this moment had been prelude. As if real life started now.

It was a hard lesson to learn. There is no prelude. There is no “life starts when . . .”

There is only this moment.

This is the last photo I took . . .

(at the mall, with Dave, admiring a pair of shoes I thought were a beautiful piece of art I could never afford)

before I took this one

Dave woke me up and told me he was having trouble breathing. I called 911. Twenty-four hours later a ventilator was breathing for him.

Between this photo and a diagnosis was six months. It is not always clear what is happening. Life can be blurry.

Dave has Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.

Don’t bother looking it up. It is a one in a million disease. It makes you weak.

Dave got better. Then worse. Better. Then worse. Better . . .

But he is home with me and only uses a ventilator at night. He uses a wheelchair. But can walk short distances. He doesn’t need oxygen. Unless we adventure to high altitude. It isn’t black and white. It isn’t clear. It is moment by moment. It is breath by breath.

Here is what I want you to remember.

We loved each other and we struggled in the beginning.

We loved each other and we struggled in the middle.

We love each other and we struggle today.

But after 25 years I have learned that the struggle is the learning. And that the way Dave and I learn best, is together. I need Dave to teach me. And Dave needs me to teach him. Within an expansive space of pure acceptance. No demand to learn. To change. Just an invitation to learn. To grow. From a place of acceptance of what is and an offer to expand into what could be. If we want. No pressure. Just an opening.

If I am writing my story, and I am, I am writing that Dave and I have known each other over many life times. We have an agreement. A promise to each other. To love each other and support each other’s growth. So this isn’t just a 25th anniversary. I don’t know what anniversary this is. (It’s this one). But I know it won’t be our last. We have so much more to learn together. So many more moments to open into. So many more breaths to take. But today, on this 25th anniversary, the only moment that matters is this one. The moment I say, again, that I love you, David Sens.

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May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.

Namaste