Carpool Confession

Fourteen years

is not fireworks every night.

It’s learning the sound

of each other’s breathing in the dark

and knowing when not to speak.

It’s watching the world bruise us—

money thin as breath,

faith bending under questions,

children arriving like small miracles

with loud opinions—

and still reaching for the same hand

when the room goes quiet.

I didn’t marry a fantasy.

I married a woman

who stands steady when I doubt myself,

who sees through my self-accusations

and refuses to agree with them.

You’ve loved me past the version of me

I was afraid you’d eventually discover.

You’ve watched me wrestle with shadows,

with the fear that I am somehow lacking—

and instead of accepting that,

instead of calling it truth,

you built a home around my fractures

and called it safe.

Fourteen years means

we know each other’s tempers,

the words that bruise,

the apologies that take time.

It means forgiveness isn’t abstract—

it lives in reading and responding,

in late-night talks when exhaustion wins,

in choosing tenderness

even when pride begs to be right.

You have been my witness—

to the man I was,

the man I’m becoming,

and the man I sometimes forget I am.

When I say “forever,”

I don’t mean perfection.

I mean this:

to keep choosing you

when the world is loud,

when love is work,

when the years leave their marks.

Fourteen years in,

and I still want to wake beside you—

to build, to fail, to laugh, to start again.

If love is a long road,

then I’m grateful

for the carpool lane.