The progressive evolution of our marriage, and my unrelenting hunger for knowledge.

My words are paired with rainy photos taken of Alex and I last spring in West Virginia.

All portraits are taken by the incredibly talented Dana Ratica.

Alex accepts me for who I am.

It inspires me. It confuses me. It even makes me look at him and think he’s so cool and so brave. No matter how weird I get, or how high my energy level can be, he believes in me and he holds on tight.

I change with the breeze and he supports and celebrates me.

We currently have different spiritual beliefs. Prior to 2020, we were on the same exact page. But I had a massive shift in consciousness, and I went from Agnostic to acknowledging and believing in a higher power.
 
Alex did not, and I sure as hell am not pushing or pressuring him. 
 
We knew this could be a make or break of incompatibility, but the thing is: we have been fighting this fight on other topics for years. We are getting really good at finding common ground where there wasn’t before.
 
Now we making progress in developing new and significantly stronger bonds regardless of our incompatibilities, spiritual or otherwise. 
As a result: Ive been able to study and share all of the scientific, philosophic, and spiritual knowledge I’m obtaining, with Alex.
 
Which then gave me the confidence to open up with other people. He gave me confidence to march into new social circles that have the same interests and spiritual practices. 
He doesn’t believe what I believe, and he doesn’t need to.
 
I just need him in my corner, cheering me on. Loving my weird, respecting our differences. Not needing to always be right, and agreeing to disagree and be happy instead.
 
We try to do this for one another every single day.
So I sit with him while he watches the Pens game, and I listen to a book and scribble into my notebook.
 
He goes to sleep at a reasonable time, and I crawl out of bed and write or meditate in my space in the garage.
 
He builds fires for me and the kids to write down our feelings and wishes and burn them because I was inspired by Alchemy and Chaos Magic.
 
He’s planning his garden around what herbs and flowers I will need for my craft.
 
He loves telling everyone about how cool, weird and fun I can be. In fact his honesty about what I’m into these days to other people, helped me to start sharing my new knowledge and beliefs. He sees me. 

His unconditional love and support is awesome because I benefit from it (just being honest) and something new: I’m learning from it.

I finally stopped saying “Well, I guess Alex is a better person than I am.” I started saying: if he can do it with ease and grace, then I can too with practice. 

Our marriage, relationship and bond are totally different than I anticipated. For me, it’s better. It’s progressive. It’s a little weird for a lot of people. 

But so am I, and Alex LOVES my weird. He is not weird, at all. So that gives our kids some resemblance at normalcy in our modern society BUT that doesn’t remotely make Alex boring. He has introduced me to more progressive thought and pop culture than almost anyone else I have ever met.

He is not remotely boring, he is just reserved, which is solid, because I am hanging from the chandelier in my headphones while getting Serena 29928938 snacks.

I love you alex. I love you alex.

I love you alex. 

More on Dana: She’s awesome to work with as a co-photographer, and as her subject.

We both have sons with great hair, and love hot passed hors d’ourves. 

Thank you for goofing off in the rain with us.