This Valentine’s Day marks ten years since I first laid eyes on John Govaert.

Leaving the details aside, it was a monumental yet not altogether abnormal day…any other; but predestined.

What forces orchestrate, I ask myself looking back, the just-right circumstances that put two people in any one same place at the same time, altering life thereafter, entirely?

I believe birthdays, anniversaries, dates of importance are not there for the celebration they elicit-granted that is a good thing and humans born, anniversaries met and milestones conquered are utterly, wondrously worthy and important to revel in in our current day and age…in any day and age. 

But for me these dates are most valuable in their reminding.

My own, this ten year for instance~

Ten years ago I had four boys ages 11, 13, 15, 17.

 

 

 

 

 

I was separated; not yet divorced.

I lived in a grand home on five acres north of Seattle, Washington.

I felt 13 again; facing a huge, marvelous, terrifying new life unfolding in front of me, yet wildly invincible and immortal.  So much opportunity and whole-wide-world-opening-up was standing in front of me; I near-daily not catch my full breath for the wonder of it.

Naive. Tremendously, terrifically naive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong; there was so much pain. So much heartache. So many tears and fits, and hands held and hearts tenderly enfolded….

yet so much naivety. I was living raw; so close to the bone; back to the self that was there before-so long before-that I was swept off my feet and into a brain-space I knew nothing of, yet existed, had rested latent, inside me for so long…

Self.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank God this naive was not so much so as as to be reckless; perhaps aforementioned boys, or simply the staunch, practical Catholic upbringing is to thank, but nonetheless naivety cautiously cushioned by practicality. 

Saving grace.

Then John. Not so much looking for him, or the purpose for which ‘him’ came to be, but simply sitting in that wide open space that had just opened in front of me and wondering, with wonder eyes, at all that filled it.

John.

 

 

Ten years ago Valentine’s Day this man came into my life and drastically altered the course of every one of my days, my breaths, from that point on. 

A me that was there, yet nearly unrecognizable began to reshape,

 

 

 

 

 

grow and live from all that was falling away from the before years of masks and costumes and all the right things, in all the right ways, with just the right portion to keep living…right.

John.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What can be said of one person’s ability to simply be in another person’s life, and allow so much of that person, that me-ness, to be? 

There is nothing like it. There are no words

enough.

Grace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is grace.

We confirmed the crazy-trust that together our ‘next’ would be better than alone nearly 7 years ago. 

I’d lie if I said it was all easy; always the right tries to poke in and stir me up to put on an old mask and behave as if…

yet it never gets in-

John.

A gift from God for sure, that just-right person who not only stands by your side, but pushes you forward, not fearing seeing you disappear far ahead….

 

 

 

 

 

 

this person, makes a life worth living, and changes the course of time.

My greatest champion

my strength when I fail

my best friend.

I love you John Govaert.

10 years.

56 more to go~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in love.

trish.