your happiness

       Today is the ninth month anniversary of our marriage. Honestly, it feels so much longer - it feels like we have lived three lifetimes in the span of one. Nine is a special number - in chinese it sounds like 久， which is used to indicate a long span of time. We always wish a couple - may your love be 长长久久 - 长 indicates a long distance, so together it is wishing that the love crosses the distance of time and space.   

      And, of course, nine months is the complete cycle of pregnancy for a beautiful baby to be born. 

     It has been difficult for you. This road that we walked. You told your closest friends before marriage that I kept you sane - and you have had to watch your sanity careen from light to darkness, never returning completely intact. 

     If I could write down all that you have done for me, the world will decry it as a piece of fiction. It is too large a task - it would be like one trying to tabulate the stars. There are too many. And even if I managed to give them all a name, you have to see a star for yourself to see how it burns. Oh, the intensity of how it burns. 

     You pivot your world on me like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. 

      I tell you I'm sorry for receiving so much and being able to give so little. 

     You messaged me: 

Your happiness have been my wish, my mission and my purpose.

     

      You declare with the confidence of someone who has never been denied anything, "I know a good thing when I see one." 

      If love is unfair, let me spend the rest of my life evening out the equation.