A personal favorite for advice is: Going through something hard in life is a lot like hiking. Once in a while, it’s important to look back and see how far you’ve come.
Similarly, it's important to soak in the summit.
Stop, take a selfie, and appreciate what you spent so much energy toward achieving. So many other blog posts have been a look back. This is me sitting on the summit, eating a well-deserved snack, and taking in the gorgeous view.
Marrying Kristy has been a beautiful and trying journey. Officially and definitively committing to walk my life in harmony with hers is the summit view. The trying journey has been unraveling who I am, and allowing her the space to unravel hers and see if we both still wanted all of this considering all that had been said and done.
When I sit on this metaphorical summit, this is what I see, smell, hear, and feel.
My heart is full, satisfied, and at peace. My wild heart has been the compass, the map, and the beacon all at once. My heart was swept away with an unfamiliar feeling from the moment I heard her high heels clicking up my apartment sidewalk. Our first date was a drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon to look at stars, freezing and blanket-less because I was so excited about the date, I forgot the necessary and romantic supplies. She earned a foot rub as we warmed ourselves in the car at Guardsman’s Pass because, days earlier, she had guessed the the type of shake I was eating (Strawberry) and spilling on myself at Culvers. I joke that I was really eating a chocolate shake. She’s one of the only people that knows that a chocolate shake and I have never met.
Following the foot rub and chat, I held her hand down the canyon and this is where things got mega romantic. I took her to Village Inn with no shoes on, and we ate breakfast for dinner, me schmoozing the less-than-attractive waitress, not to flirt, but because everyone deserves a little sunshine.
From that day, Kristy has been that sunshine to my life, and it gives me permission to be my brightest everywhere I go, especially when she’s with me.
And mother of god, we have been to so many amazing places. The extent of both universal travel, and deep soul journeys, and everywhere physically in between has been extensive. Most of Utah has been explored. The surrounding states, too. Even pockets of Guatemala. I’ve never adventured with someone that feels like an extension of myself and who I enjoy so thoroughly every single second of the crazy ride.
And the taste. Kristy is a fantastic cook. Her main ingredient is love. Sour dough has become her passion, and she takes the lessons that she learned from her late dad and applies them to the most delicious creations. She doesn’t cook amazing things because she has to, she does it because she enjoys it and does it so well. When we go out to eat, we separately get to order two meals at every restaurant. This doesn’t mean we have four, it means that we will each sample from what’s in front of us, and openly share what’s in front of the other. I don’t know if there’s a better metaphor for our life and love together. We do housework, juggle kids, and share fears and joys in the exact same way. Eating what’s in front of us, and sampling what’s in front of the other, through everything good and everything hard. What more could a person ask for in life than a companion like that?
I hear this beautiful soundtrack playing behind all of these breathtaking memories we share. The music that fills our car rides, our evenings cooking together, or the concerts we go to always seems to be the exact vibe the other person is feeling. When our Spotify Recap comes up, our top artists, and top songs are almost always the same. Trevor Hall, Caamp, and Mumford and Sons are the steadies. Sprinkled in is my love for Xavier Rudd, John Butler, and Odeza mixed with her love of 90s hip hop. We can get behind Macklemore, Eminem, Jay-Z, and random songs that we both hear for the first time. I’ll never forget us making out on my couch for the first time and we both instantly and simulteneouslyu fell in love with a song called “Flow” by Katastro. Recently, it’s been her sweet voice singing with me as I’ve loved rediscovering the guitar.
Being human isn’t always easy or enjoyable, though for me it always seems worth it. When I can feel the same thing for another person, I’ve heard that concept called compersion. To learn that feeling in my experience with Kristy has opened my heart wider. To hold another person on the same plane as my own has been a gigantic ask for my ego. To feel my heart get a voice as strong as that gigantic force feels like an accomplishment. It’s an experience that only the sweet experience Kristy has brought into my life could accomplish.
I see her lips. I gaze into her eyes. I feel her body, all the soft, smooth, and wildly feminine parts of her, mixed with her quiet tenacity, her kindness, her gentle heart, and commitment to integrity. It’s easy to find a person you’d be willing to die for. It’s quite another to find a person you feel inspired to live for and become your best self for, because they deserve that version as much as you do.
I sit on this summit and I daydream about all the adventures still on our horizon, the people we’ll get to meet, the laughs that we’ll be able to share, and the hard moments we’ll be able to traverse together. She and I have pushed against each other’s every wound and I’ve never found anyone so worthy to have my whole heart and my whole efforts intertwined with. I’ve never been swept away by love and realize that this feeling isn’t the type of fleeing, ethereal tickling that a Romeo professed. It’s a love that touches down into the deepest parts of me and has challenged me to question my every value, and has helped sift the best parts of myself to the surface. Life’s challenges might be sticky, but the love underneath, and beside, and all around feels easy. So even when my perspective becomes narrow, and the challenge is all-too close to my nose, that current reminds me, calls to me, and beckons me to flow once again.
I get to experience her whimsy, her funny sense of humor, her passion and commitment to helping others unshackle themselves from religion, societal expectations, and inner doubts. I get a front row seat to her vulnerabilities and the flaws she thinks she has and cherish them like the gold and gemstones they are. I get to see a woman well versed in exercising her masculine half, and thrive in her feminine.
I get to go climbing with my best friend, and we get to take turns with the pull and push of adventure. She’s up for a cold plunge every bit as much as I am, or she’ll join me in doing evening yoga as much as she’ll push for a walk together. I get to lay next to her in our own beautiful world while our minds dive into the beautiful world our respective author is orchestrating in the books we independently read before drifting off to sleep.
I see a woman that I’m excited to see in the morning, and a woman I can’t wait to come home to in the evening. I get to experience a woman I’d experience my own personal exhaustion for if it gave her a few extra minutes of rest from the innumerable demands of a busy working woman who has to come home to answer the demands of motherhood. I get to move through friendships and watch her dance her beautiful dance through plutonic relationships with grace, sincerity, thoughtfulness, and integrity.
They say the way a person does the small things is the way they do everything. Big and small, I’m married to a woman that I’m deeply proud of. I recently observed that I have yet to live in a home for more than 5 years in my whole life. Kristy and I met in October of 2018. October 2023 was the five-year anniversary of me knowing her. February of 2024 marks the 5th year since I moved in with her. I may not have lived here continuously for 5 years, but my heart has been hers since I met her. That’s the only home I want. The place where I can rest, dance, eat, play, cry, and do all the things like only my unique experience and personality can have. To have a place where I have permission to do and be all of those things is the home I’ve craved, and it’s finally the home I know I have.
This won’t be the highest summit her and I ever achieve, but it feels damn good to be sitting here knowing that we only have a lifetime more of those. In my heart, I’d say lifetimes.
A love well earned. Good for you!