This month my partner and I celebrate ten years together. Ten years, on one hand it feels like 2 weeks on the other 100 years. We have survived through thick and thin, we have endured great happiness and great loss. Our love has remained strong, true and patient.
We have had our hard times like with all long term relationships. My partners diagnosis of bipolar disorder has been a prominant part of our lives together for the past few years. She has endured unbearable lows and sky highs. Through it all she has managed to remember me here, remember my love for her, she managed to muster up the courage to live and has remained here by my side in moments I am sure she wanted nothing more than to run as fast as she could. Either to chase a manic rainbow or to just give in and leave this world and her life here behind. For that I can never show her enough love.
A ten year anniversary is something that I wasnt sure we would see a few years ago. Our relationship went through a very rough time. It was tempted and strained. Without a diagnosis my partners mania nearly drove our relationship down a dead end road. Somehow our love provailed, we managed a 3 point turn before the end of that road and decided to head down another path. This path seems far more promising, sure it has dangerous twists and turns and there is always another fork in it somewhere but we are not driving recklessly anymore. We are taking the road slow and steady, making the best decisions that we can with both our minds unified in the process. I am so incredibly proud and humbled to be here, at this point, weeks away from celebrating 10 years together. I can't think of anyone else I would like to spend my life with. Bipolar Disorder can ride in the back seat with us on our journey but I refuse to let it take the wheel.
This year is supposed to be our diamond anniversary. I am not one to really follow those types of gift standards and well lets face it I couldnt afford to buy a diamond beautiful and big enough to house the love that I have for my partner. Instead I will give her a memory, a memory I hope she can take with her on our journey and beyond. I am going to take her away for a weekend to Algonquin Park. There we will spend a quiet, relaxing weekend with only our company. We will go hiking and swimming, we will enjoy some wine in front of a roaring fire and dine on steak cooked on an open fire. At the end of the day we will fall into eachothers arms and reminisce on the past ten years we have spent toghether, all the good memories of those years, we will remeber all of the difficult times and be thankful we came through them all together.
I can't wait to see what the next Ten years offers us! I hope that whatever life throws our way we will continue to come together and find our way through hand in hand and minds united in love and respect.
