The Boy I Loved, The man I Adore

For the last two weeks, we’ve been celebrating my husband turning 50. We kicked things off at our 4th annual family Halloween party.

The kids came dressed as different versions of their dad, wrote him the most heartfelt cards, and pooled their money together to buy him a really special gift.

A few days later, Mark and I flew to Michigan to visit family and celebrate his birthday watching the Michigan State vs. Michigan game with friends.

We had a blast! I loved celebrating him.

I’ve been wanting to write something about him, but I haven’t quite found the words to describe what turning 50 with him feels like—or what it means to me. I didn’t want it to sound cliché or come from my head. I wanted the words to rise up from deep within my body. Because more than my mind, my body remembers and knows our story—and what this man means to me.

So I’ve been waiting for the words to come.

Growing older together keeps getting better. But life wasn’t always like this. Back in 2020, I wasn’t sure if our love story would make it.

There were cracks in our relationship we could no longer ignore. We both had to go deep within ourselves to heal—and we’re still doing that work.

Even though we’ve been growing and healing our relationship for the past 25 years, there came a time when it all felt like it was crumbling. Waking up to white supremacy, the harm of evangelicalism and leaving the church, the isolation of COVID, job loss, unhealed childhood wounds, me going through perimenopause, and our kids growing older—it was a lot.

But here’s the thing: there’s something beautiful about midlife and menopause. It can be brutal, yes, but if you allow yourself to walk through the pain, transformation and deep healing are possible. It’s a chance for rebirth—for meeting yourself, maybe for the first time.

And this weekend, as I looked at him across the room, my heart filled with the same feeling I had when we were young—yet I saw him with new eyes. I saw both the teenage boy I fell in love with and the man who has healed, and continues to heal.

A man who is honest with his feelings.Who takes responsibility for himself.Who knows he has blind spots and is willing to do the inner work.A man who is fun, loves adventure, and still makes me laugh until my belly hurts.

And yes—he can still catch my eye from across the room, and everything in me lights up.

Don’t get me wrong—he’s also the one who can trigger me the most. But now we have the tools. We know how to reparent ourselves, to care for those younger, insecure, and protective parts when they rise up.

We both know we’re here to help each other heal and become our truest, most authentic selves.

At 50, what makes me smile most when I think of him is how I can be completely raw and naked with my feelings. Nothing is too much for him. He allows me to be fully me. He sees me.

And still, there are parts of him that keep me curious—and he stays curious about me. I think that’s what keeps our love alive. We see each other deeply, yet we’re still learning and discovering. Staying curious, open, and connected makes life more colorful—and our love only grows deeper.

We continue to learn something new about ourselves and each other. Growing older and turning 50 is a gift. I hope and pray we get another 50 years together.

This man is my most favorite human on this planet.

I’m not someone who necessarily believes in fate, but when I think of our love story, I can’t help but feel that God, the universe—whatever name you give it—had a plan for us from the very beginning.

When he walked into our elementary school with that new spiked haircut, this 10-year-old girl thought he was so cute or in 6th grade, My friend and I were the only two girls on the boys’ basketball team with him, and he hated passing me the ball.

And then, in 12th grade, someone told me he thought I was the hottest girl in our school and loved when I wore these tight black pants. Never in a million years did I think he would say that about me. You better believe I wore those pants all the time—and made sure he saw me walking up to the pencil sharpener to sharpen my pencil.

I even remember whispering to a friend in choir class (don’t know why I was in that class—I can’t sing!), “I’m going to marry Mark.”And he wasn’t even my boyfriend yet.

So, despite what I believe about fate, we were meant for each other.

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