For better or worse

I raise a toast to our significant others—the one or two bubble buddies who have gone the distance with us and are still here. And a toast of appreciation to Tex…he’s the special guy who has not just put up with me but has made my life wonderful in spite of it all.

When Tex and I got married three years ago we said something about for better or worse, in sickness and in health and for richer or poorer. But we didn’t commit to spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months or 52 weeks of the year together, just the two of us, excluding any and every one else. We didn’t sign up for that. We had never even thought of such a thing.

Tex and I met on the road. We spent our relationship shunting each other back and forth to the airport or ferry checking our schedules to plan when we would see each other again and how many days we would spend together.

As an example…three days after our wedding Tex kissed me goodbye in Calgary, where I spent the first month of our marriage in an artist in residence program, and he drove off across the country. That was our relationship…we loved it.

COVID isolation hasn’t been easy on any of us. We all have a story about how it has impacted our lives in a specific way. I’m thinking we should all turn to our bubble buddies and raise a glass in honour of their unique struggle and name the thing they have put up with and put out there to make this crazy time work.

Take Tex, for instance. He was a footloose, self-made, curious world traveller, deliberately never married, deliberately never becoming a father…stubbornly independent. Getting married was a huge departure from his plan…and then becoming Grandpa Tex to 8 kids…another huge departure. Two years later add the 24/7 thing of COVID…where he almost literally has had his feet nailed to the floor. No more travel, co making everything and where we don’t even know what independence means anymore…it is currently undergoing a complete rethink…never mind the hit COVID itself had on his big, strong, previously healthy body.

I’m acknowledging his struggle and celebrating the growth in our relationship. For us, this has been the worst and the best of times. Thank you thank you thank you, my love, for climbing into and over this mountain with me.

Even if I had known what this strange and intense reality would be like, I would have chosen you to be my bubble buddy.