Ten years ago today, 21-year-old me married 24-year-old Michelle.

Because we were young and stupid, we thought 9:30am would be a good time to kick things off. Miraculously, 300-odd friends and family were awake enough to join us at the church. Less miraculously, Michelle was 20 minutes late, and I was sweating for most of them.

As far as decades go, it’s been pretty epic for both of us. I’ve gradually become the sort of person Michelle wouldn’t have considered eligible 10 years ago (she didn’t dig guys with piercings, progressive views and colourful vocabularies), while she’s simply become a more beautiful, more confident version of herself (thankfully with fewer life partner prerequisites).

We’ve changed careers, run a business, narrowly avoided bankruptcy, struggled to eventually become parents, traveled a little, bought a house, suffered loss, survived near-estrangement, adopted fur babies with varying degrees of success, endured depression, anxiety and other health dramas, and so much more.

Looking back, it’s easy to chuckle over the naivete of our expectations of the marriage that was ahead of us. Ten years in, most of them have been shattered (or adjusted beyond recognition), but the important things remain the same: we love Jesus, we love each other, and we accept our inability to adequately meet each other’s needs (but we keep trying anyway–Michelle much more successfully than me).

Mimi, I’m so incredibly grateful for your partnership in life–your faithfulness to God and to me–your near-boundless patience and optimism–your practical, emotional and spiritual selflessness–your humble excellence as our children’s mother–your ever-growing wisdom and self-awareness–your creativity, humour and joy–your lack of prejudice–and your general, you know, hotness.

Thank you for choosing me 10 years ago, and for choosing me again every day.

I’m not going to stop choosing you. More and more, better and better.

I love you.