In case it isn't obvious from my constant blathering on about how great things are, I am stupidly happy these days. More than happy, I am content. A fat cat in a sunbeam kind of content. I'm not sure quite exactly when the angst and discontent of youth fell away, when the edgy, whiny protests against everything hushed. If you had told me ten years ago that, at the very young age of thirty one, I would be married with a daughter and living in a suburban house in North Carolina, if you had told me that I would have quit the job working for the giant corporation with the nice paycheck and the fantastically cushy benefits and the daily coddling of my needy little ego to stay home and take care of the kid... well, I would have sneered and said something obnoxiously sarcastic and then stomped away in my oversized Doc Martens boots and my anti-trend, vaguely androgynous outfit to go write some bad poetry on the tyranny of institutions and the sad beauty of a wandering life, or some such self-involved nonsense. It's amazing how a whole life can stretch and shiver and settle in a few years.
Now here I am. Wife. Mom. Happy. Who would have thought. Not the girl in the ridiculous pre-Emo getup, I can assure you. I mean, I actually cook things. And bake. And, Internet... I planted things in the garden a few months ago. With all the dirt and the bugs and the nature. Look at me domesticate. It seems that at some point, when you stop fighting with yourself, when you stop sighing and turning away, and simply follow happiness where it leads, you end up, well... happy.
This is all a roundabout way of saying, I wouldn't be in this place without the one who led me here. Thank you, Charlie, for this life and her life and all that you do every single day. Happy Anniversary.