Reader, I Married Her

Sundays

I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest — blest beyond what language can express; because I am my [wife’s] life as fully as [s]he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of [her] bone and flesh of [her] flesh. I know no weariness of [her] society: [s]he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on [her], all [her] confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character — perfect concord is the result.

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

There is a human impulse during dark times to turn away from the light, especially when the darkness encroaches in a way that feels inescapable. Luckily, the opposite impulse also exists; despite the increasing onslaught of deliberate cruelty, lost ground, and assaults on our very understanding of who we are over the last year, our better instincts prevail—our instincts not only to subsist and survive, but to thrive.

At the very beginning of 2025—January 20^th to be exact (not an insignificant date)—I was presented with an alternative to the shuttered, circumscribed, and lonely life I had come to live. For reasons I still haven’t figured out (if past is prologue, I had no reason to believe that I would ever find somebody with whom I could share my life in a way that was joyous and loving and mutual), I allowed myself to embrace that alternative.

In October, the two of us were married in front of a small group of some of our family and closest friends. Today, I continue to be stunned by my greatest good fortune. I am married not only to the love of my life but to my best friend. Because I opened myself to the possibility that was held out to me almost a year ago, my other relationships have deepened in new and unexpected ways. I am happy in a way I never would have dared imagine.

There is more to the story, of course—including the reason for my not having spoken of my marriage publicly before this—and times continue to be challenging. The first eleven days of 2026 represent an escalation of the horrors we experienced as a country since January 20, 2025, that is as shocking as it is predictable. For that reason, it is more important than ever to remember there is always light and hope and love to be had if we allow ourselves to let it in. We must always let it in.