I’m thumb-typing this into a Google doc on my phone as our flight taxis for takeoff.

Mike and I are taking off for 9 nights without the kids to celebrate 10 years of marriage.

There’s one part of being married for a decade (and together for 13.5 years) that I really didn’t think was possible for anyone, let alone me.

But we’re experiencing it so now I know it is!

I have Saturn in my 7th house which means that partnerships (romantic and otherwise) are one of my biggest karmic lessons in this lifetime.

Saturn is the planet of growth through pressure and the 7th house is the house of partnership.

When Mike and I said our vows overlooking Casco Bay in Maine in front of our most beloved friends and family, we had no idea what lay ahead.

Especially the struggle part.

The first few years were relatively easy, TBH.

Then our first baby arrived, and with her came a period of 8 years of intensity that included:

• excruciating chronic illness for Mike and our first daughter
• Mike getting hit by a car
• navigating my mother being “canceled”
• profound political division in our family (and the world)
• mold poisoning
• the everyday, more run-of-the-mill intensities of raising kids, running a company, and a whole bunch of moves in the mix

Despite a part of me wanting to make it clear that I understand there are way more intense things people navigate in the world and my privilege (see my recent conversation with Yasmine Cheyenne on Plenty about comparative suffering), it’s been really healing for me to just say: it’s been a really hard bunch of years.

And these hard bunch of years were really hard on Mike and my connection to each other, especially when he was in severe pain and discomfort and my response to it was (unfortunately) resentment and distancing.

As a child of divorce and someone who’s soaked up cultural conditioning, I didn’t realize that I assumed that in marriages connection dwindles over the years.

But even in those darkest of times between me and Mike, when even touching him felt somehow unavailable, there was a stubborn little hopeful part of me that kept a candle lit for the timeline in which our spark could actually grow over time.

Thank Goddess for that freaking stubborn part. Without her, I think I would’ve quit.

But because of her and her little candle, she refused to let go out (and very likely a coinciding stubborn little f*cker inside Mike) I’m happy to report the following:

I’m more in love with and attracted to Mike than on the day we got married a decade ago.

We’ve done a lot of things that I think contributed to re-igniting and making the magic even more magical than when we began, but here’s the big one:

We’ve both been consistently committed to working on our own sh*t.

We’ve worked on it with a therapist together, with therapists apart, with each other, within ourselves, with friends, with plant medicine, with journaling, with somatics, and so much more.

But basically, we didn’t make our expansion as individuals dependent on the other person doing or being something different.

And you know what? The more I heal and grow, the better Mike looks and feels to me. And the more he heals and grows, the better he looks and feels to me.

Do I think every marriage is meant to be forever and that healing and growing means it’ll work out? Nope. I saw my parents’ marriage end after 24 years. And I’ve had the joy of seeing them both fall in love again and be met as more healed and expanded versions of themselves.

Do I know that Mike and I will stay together as long as we’re both alive? Nope. But that’s most certainly my desire and commitment.

In this moment as we fly away to celebrate our love, you better believe that the little flame I kept burning inside during the darkest times has turned into more of a blaze.

And what I vow today as we step into our next decade is to keep stoking that fire with my devotion to my own healing and expansion in service to our love, and Love at large.

We can’t control the outcome of anything, marriage included, but we can certainly choose how we show up and as who.

Today and every day from here on out I choose to show up as love and, when I inevitably forget, I’ll choose to remember soon.

Love,
Kate