Happy Anniversary

Happy anniversary to the person who said they would love me through sickness and in health.

When you make it to ten years, everything seems like it’s going exactly the way it’s supposed to. You marry for love, partnership, companionship. You marry the person you want to do life with. The person you want to grow old with. The person you want to see the world with.

As time goes on, you’re struggling yourself, but you put your own needs aside to help someone else. You keep sacrificing. You keep showing up. You keep believing that love is enough.

You have children, but somehow you feel like a single mother.

And even though you barely worked, I was still the breadwinner.

Happy anniversary to the person who said they would love me no matter what.

Happy anniversary to the narcissist.

Happy anniversary to the abuser.

Happy anniversary to the cheater.

Happy anniversary to the liar.

Happy anniversary to the family who helped keep the secrets.

When you’re young and in love, you don’t realize you’re being manipulated. You don’t realize you’re being coerced. You don’t realize that what you’re calling love is sometimes control wrapped in pretty words and empty promises.

So you keep going.

You separate and somehow find your way back together.

They come back crying. Promising to do better. Promising to be better. Promising to finally become everything you’ve been asking for.

And because you love them, you believe them.

Nobody tells you that abuse isn’t always physical.

Sometimes it’s financial.

Sometimes it’s emotional.

Sometimes it’s mental.

Sometimes it’s psychological.

Sometimes it’s spiritual.

And sometimes the bruises nobody sees take the longest to heal.

Then you make it to twenty-five years.

You renew your vows.

Through sickness and in health.

For better or for worse.

Looking back, maybe I should have known then.

Because even on the day that was supposed to celebrate us, I compromised what I wanted to fit your narrative.

Again.

Happy anniversary to the person who was always smooth.

Happy anniversary to the person who could walk into a room and make everybody smile.

Happy anniversary to the person who could make me laugh by saying something stupid.

Happy anniversary to the beautiful memories.

Happy anniversary to the road trips, the inside jokes, the dreams we built together.

Happy anniversary to the children we created.

Because not everything was bad.

Some of it was beautiful.

That’s what makes grief so complicated.

You mourn the person who hurt you, and the person you thought they were.

Happy anniversary to the person who eventually stabbed me in the back.

Happy anniversary to the person who broke my trust one more time.

Happy anniversary to the person who never truly chose me.

Happy anniversary to the person who claimed they loved me but didn’t know how to love me at all.

Happy anniversary to the motherfucker who didn’t want a divorce but had no problem building a life with another woman.

Happy anniversary to the motherfucker who had a child outside our marriage while his family helped keep the secret until she was graduating from school.

Thirty years.

Thirty years of loyalty.

Thirty years of sacrifice.

Thirty years of choosing someone who never fully chose me.

I deserved honesty.

I deserved respect.

I deserved loyalty.

I deserved the same love I gave so freely.

Happy anniversary to the love of my life.

You were once the love of my life.

But somewhere along the way, I became the love of my own.

And that’s the anniversary worth celebrating.

Happy anniversary to you, motherfucker.