Unicorniversery

So much has happened. Tomorrow is my anniversary with Suzannah. It doesn't feel like a year has passed. I wake up every morning and get to cuddle my best friend. And again before I go to bed at night. Every day is made better, just as it has been in the past, when I got to spend some of it with a best friend. But I get to do that all the time now. It's wonderful, and hasn't gotten less wonderful, a year later. Not even a little. What an incredible blessing.

Today is Unicorn Gate, as we dubbed it, represented by The Last Unicorn. A movie we watched together a year ago, thinking it would be a romantic childhood nostalgia trip. It was not. In case you've forgotten like we'd forgotten, the last unicorn is weird and sad and creepy. The whole thing feels like it's on drugs. That first official date ended feeling weird and uncomfortable, with a stomach ache from dinner, and then there was an awkward and uncomfortable first kiss.

We call it Unicorn Gate because, like Watergate, it brought to light a whole bunch of stuff that had been brewing underground. When we finally were able to talk about it, it dissipated. There is all the expectations and the posturing and trying to be someone we're not, associated with the initial courtship dance, and this brought it all up to light. And once it was voiced, and we were out of the uncomfortable expectations and just being real, being ourselves, it became clear that we really liked who that real person was. I say we, but since I'm writing this, I want to give myself credit and say I saw that real person and relationship a while before this event. But Suzannah needed it, to clear away her uncertainty. For me, it was a walk several weeks earlier, that we've dubbed "Possum Magic" for reasons that would be clear if you knew the story. (but that's a story for another day.)

In any case, as we reflected on the yearly return of Unicorn gate this morning, during this pandemic, I said something like, "let it remind us that sometimes the best things come from the seemingly worst." Sometimes you need a bad first kiss and break-up to realize you really do like someone. Sometimes if you totally surrender controle and trust God completely with the outcome, trust that no matter how bad it looks right now, it is all for your best, then everything turns out better than you could ever do, or ever did, trying to control everything with your spindly little ego arms.

So, here's to the power of Unicorns, and trippy, uncomfortable-feeling 80's fantasy films. And the power of things we think are bad, things that feel bad in the moment, to actually bring about great good. No "fertilizer," no flowers.