Relationships are hardᯓ★

    ⋆🐾° Relationships are hard, dude. You have to try really hard. A relationship in the 5th year is complicated. You have to be careful with what you say, because by then you’ve learned that the person you love knows exactly what you mean. Ten years in, it’s deeper. It’s good, very good, but the little insults can stack up. Things you’ve forgotten saying might still be sitting quietly in the other person’s heart. The respect has to grow with the relationship. It has to become a little more thoughtful, a little more tender.
     Then you get to fifteen years, and whoa. That certainly isn’t the 5th year relationship anymore. You know each other’s habits, moods, and the particular way the other person gets quiet. There’s comfort in that, but you have to be even more careful with the jabs, and kidding. Knowing someone so well is a lovely thing. It also means you know exactly where a careless remark can land.
     Now jump to me, thirty years in. Sometimes, dude, one unintentional snark is a punch in the stomach. It might be a small remark, but it has thirty years behind it. You can upset the whole apple cart very easily when you’ve spent that long filling it together. There’s so much in there. Ordinary mornings. Hard years. Private jokes. All those times you chose each other, even when neither of you was being particularly easy to choose.
     It’s like stepping on someone’s foot, metaphorically, of course. At thirty years, your foot is huge. You think you’ve made one little misstep, and suddenly you’ve stepped on a whole history. And sticking your foot in your mouth? Dude, the amount of foot going in there is unbelievable. Sometimes you hear yourself say something and wish you could gently reach across the table and take the words back before they get to the person you love.
 But it’s good, too. Very good. Very deep. There’s something lovely about being known that long, about someone knowing all your peculiarities and still wanting you beside them. You have to navigate it well. The complexity is the fascination, I think. The understanding is the grace. Giving each other room. Learning when to speak, when to listen, and when a hand resting on theirs might do more good than whatever clever thing you were about to say.
Growing together, but leaving enough room for each of you to grow. Being close without assuming you’ve learned everything there is to know about the other person. And I see her, on the edge of the couch, in the lamplight and I think how beautiful. There she is. The person I’ve been sharing all this life with. I love her.
  “This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.” I think Jim Morrison said that. It’s always stuck with me somehow.