Nine years after saying ‘I do,’ I don’t simply remember the choice we made that day. I continue making it.
There is a moment in every love story that people celebrate.
The first meeting.
The first kiss.
The proposal.
The wedding.
We remember those moments because they are easy to point to.
But they are not what sustains a marriage.
Nine years ago today, we said, “I do.”
Those words mattered.
But they were never the hardest part.
No one tells you that marriage is less often tested by extraordinary moments than by ordinary ones.
It is built in grocery stores, hospital waiting rooms, long workdays, quiet evenings, difficult conversations, and the thousand small opportunities to turn toward one another instead of away.
Love is sustained less by one extraordinary promise than thousands of ordinary decisions.
Choosing kindness when you’re tired.
Choosing patience when life is heavy.
Choosing honesty over assumption.
Choosing repair after misunderstanding.
Choosing laughter after difficult weeks.
Choosing to keep building, even when the blueprint changes.
If my younger self believed love was something you found…
My older self has learned it is something you practice.
Nine years later…I still choose you.
Not because every day is easy.
Not because every chapter has been gentle.
But because, after everything we’ve lived through, I know what love asks of us.
It doesn’t ask for perfection.
It asks us to keep showing up.
So today…
Today is no different.
I choose you.
