My Sweet Love

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'."

--William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

I've written a lot here about my own struggles to recognize and control my own self-destructive habits and patterns. I think about those things a lot. I think about how hard it is to understand what I really want, how hard it is to figure out how to get it, how hard it is to be useful and hopeful in the world. And those things are all true, for me. But what is also true, what is more true, in fact, is that I am deliriously, unbelievably, bursting-at-the-seams happy where it really counts. At the end of the day there is one simple reason for that, there is one thing I know with absolute conviction deep down in my soul, one thing that offers daily proof to me that the universe is more intense and beautiful than we can ever know. That one thing is a person, my soulmate, my best friend and deepest companion, my beautiful, incandescently graceful wife, Dawn Marie Buettner-Huntington.

My wife saved my life. I believe that, in ways that I can't even express. And she's kept on saving it every day since we met, just by being who she is. Who is she? Well, it's true to say that she's beautiful, kind, loving, creative, nurturing, charming, funny, that she's a wonderful mother and a source of constant, unconditional love and support, that after almost ten years of marriage and almost twenty years of friendship she still surprises me on a daily basis with hidden reservoirs of strength, vulnerability and emotion, that she inspires me to try to become the best version of myself, that she charts her own course in the world by instinct and will, that she possesses a kind of stiff inner compass that always points the way forward, that just thinking about her face sitting here at my desk makes me smile. All those things are true, and more. But the thing that saves me, every morning, the thing that really preserves my faith and optimism about the universe, is that there exists another person in this world who is willing to dedicate every fiber of her being to building a foundation of love and joy by my side. She is in it, in other words, until the end, and she is going to do the work, no matter how hard it is, to make sure we get to the end. And that's all it takes, because once that woman's mind is made up it's all over, jack. *Nobody* works harder than her, nobody possesses a stronger will or a more focused determination to complete a task. And one of the tasks she's chosen to complete is to construct a beautiful family, fueled and guided by love, and by some insane stroke of cosmic luck, she's chosen to do it with me.

That is the reason, less I overstate my neurosis, that I am writing a blog and taking walks around the block to deal with my issues rather than shooting heroin or jumping off buildings or muttering nonsense on a street corner somewhere while the birds shit on my head. I believe in love, I believe in hope, I believe in the power of human will and the strength of kindness and compassion because I SEE IT EVERY DAY.

Happy birthday, Dawnie Marie. I love you.