It's all that I have to give...

Dave and I have a song, it Annie's Other Song, it's John Denver, it's love shouted out in an hopeful voice. It goes like this;


I'm bringing me home to you
it's all that I have to give
My life, my love my everything
it's you I choose to be with

For a long time I've wanted to have our wedding rings engraved to say my life, my love, my everything, but I'm looking back...

Once there was a time when I was so full of possibility and fear and apathy. And I spoke to Dave over five hundred miles of open land in love tones, wanting him to save me, wanting him to fix me, wanting his soul to be the spackle and my soul to be the home, I wanted him to be the thing that shored up the weak and crumbling parts of my exsisting structure.

I made him promise that we would be happy. So he promised, and I believed.

Then he closed the distance of open land, and we went home to each other.

We sat in an empty apartment with a sleeping bag. I peppered him with hopes and requests and expectation. We laid in the dark and talked about all the things you feel absolutely have to be settled when you're new. Will we do this? Oh yes, of course. But I also want this, let's not forget this. Oh, we could never forget that, ever. And we'll name our children... and on and on and on...

I'm bringing me home to you

I did our daughter's hair and nursed our son while he slept. I made little cards and art projects and went on walks and picnics. He went to work while I slept and wrote love notes and read stories and got everyone out the door and into the car when we were late. We went to the park and hiked on the weekends, we endured the spotlight of summer sun while our children looked at elephants and bears, and then we would or turn our heads to each other and smile and the smile said we are a team and you and I are the captains...

My life, my love, my everything

Then I got a little more selfish.

I worried that I married too young. I worried that I would never be myself again. The novelty wore off but the apron stayed on. I got the crazy eyes of someone who's thirsty thirty minutes into a trip across the Sahara. I got sad and far off and when I was present I was in constant terror that he felt the same. We would get on each others' nerves and get snippy and insecure. And then our children would look up at us hopeful and dependent, he would smile from across the kitchen and I would remember, that smile would be like a renewal of a covenant, we are a team and you and I are the captains. As he would smile I would remake every choice that brought me to that kitchen and those children and that smile...

It's you I choose to be with

Now I think I want my rings to say it's all that I have to give, because guess what, it's not much. but it's Dave's. It's everything I have, my love, and my vindictiveness, my fingernails clicking against his in waiting rooms and churches, my pettiness, my smile. It's all that I've got and it's his.