Join Joy, Scott, Seth and me as we stake a claim in our marriages by writing Marriage Letters every Monday.

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Dear Seth,

I’ve seen black widow spiders all over this property, dime-sized and plump, put my hand right next to their chaotic webs on the rock. I wake in the night, and I know in a sudden that they inhabit all play areas outside. They lay slow like mindless fungus but arch ready to strike at my babies. I just know it, like I know the limbs will break, and they’ll shoot their eyes out, and they’ll get catch tularemia from a squirrel.

You. You are not like me in the way of worry. Not at all. Everyone else in the world might say it’s not a good idea to eat raw chicken, but you say, “Don’t worry! We’ll be fine!” I wonder sometimes how our balancing act works, a tad reactionary maybe.

I wonder sometimes if we aren’t a see-saw, and our fulcrum is the truth. We bat around ideas like tether ball, standing as far as we can from each other, until finally in the middle, the ball wraps around.

We never were much alike, as a key is much unlike the lock.

We aren’t alike, but when we went to bed last night, I told you: we aren’t opposites – you as you got in bed and ruffled the covers all up next to me, who smoothed it all out. I haven’t seen you as my opposite in a long while. But if anything were opposite of us, it would be that I take when you give.

I didn’t know it at the time, but when we got married, you were still so much boy, had barely grown into your own head. I didn’t know it. I loved your guitar and how you scribbled lyrics on napkins. I loved how you processed and decided and stood firm, and I had no idea how you would grow to be a man who gives.

I get so frustrated, and I’m quick to snap. You stay cool, not unpassionate, but you give like a ship moved forward by a sail. I have a hard time not thinking in mixed metaphors, and you see it straight. The things that are different about you are still becoming the things that I trust.

It’s been a slow learning, to let go with you, not work against you.

I love how unity doesn’t mean that we aren’t different.

Thank you for making the coffee.

Amber

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