All the gold is gone here, but I want to linger with it just a bit longer

1. Savor is coming! Daily Practices for a more nourishing holiday from Rachel Cole, one of my favorite traditions.

2. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: September notebooks (excerpts) and 30-day challenge.

3. 7 Ways for Introverts and HSPs to Beat the Winter Blues.

4. God doesn’t hate people. You hate gay people. (video) “Reza Aslan breaks down a particular tendency humans have when talking about the divine, and how it affects all of us.”

5. 52 Mondays: The Backstory, shared by A Design So Vast.

6. No-waste grocery store. (video)

7. Recipes I want to try: 6 High-Fiber Recipes and roasted yams and chickpeas with yogurt and graham crackers. Let’s just get real and admit I want to try every recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

8. Wisdom from Jena Schwartz’s recent newsletter, (sign up for it here), “We cannot change the world if we’re not also making room to look inward. And I believe with all my heart that looking inward and writing freely are radical acts, acts that become the foundation for resisting and undoing inner and outer oppression. Writing is a mighty force.”

9. Wisdom from Susannah Conway’s recent Love Letter, (sign up for it here), “I’m currently 50% less productive but 98% more content.”

10. This man was paralyzed by an act of police brutality – now, his son is inspiring him to walk again. (video)

11. Her family hired me as a maid for 12 years but then she stole my life and made it a Disney movie. This is the worst.

12. Three Athletes Who Risked Everything to Protest. (video) “Long before Colin Kaepernick took a knee, these pro athletes took a stand.”

13. Mary J Blige: ‘I lost my gut and my gift. But I got it back.’ “The R&B singer turned actor tells Rebecca Nicholson about her heartache, reborn hope, and why she sometimes needs to get away from herself.” I’ve mentioned before how much I love Solange’s “A Seat at The Table” and SZA’s “Ctrl.” Mary J. Blige’s “What’s the 411?” was that album for me in 1992. She’s amazing.

14. Forever Flourishing, something good coming from Toi Smith in 2018. “Forever Flourishing is all about honoring, celebrating, and championing women. We believe women are the shit. We also believe that all women – no matter their age, race, or ideology – should be vocal about their greatness and work towards self-actualization, even while fighting to smash the various systems that bind us. Always…in all ways.”

15. The Moth. “Arts organization The Moth was founded in 1997, and has surfaced thousands of people’s stories through hundreds of live shows. Each show has its own theme, and each story is unique.” We went to a live event last night, and the story Dylan Park told BROKE me.

I wrote on the card I gave Eric this morning: “24 years?! How does that even happen? How does it happen SO FAST?!” I have no answers for this. Here we are, just living our lives like it’s no big deal — making each other laugh, getting irritated about stupid stuff that doesn’t even matter, doing the laundry and making dinner and walking the dogs — and suddenly we’ve been married for 24 years.

At Chelsey and Jon’s wedding reception this weekend, Eric said, “do you think if we could go back to that day and relive it knowing everything was going to work out, we’d have enjoyed it more?” I said, “you didn’t enjoy our wedding?” He laughed and said that wasn’t what he meant, but rather he remembers being 24 and just starting out, anxious about how things were going to go, wondering if it was going to be okay.

This morning I read this great article from Susan Piver, The Truth About Marriage Vows: Five Promises you Can Keep. She talks about the “not knowing” we enter into when we commit to another person. We can’t be sure, we can’t know, but we dive in anyway. She ends the post by saying,

Here’s something else I’ve learned about a relationship: Okay, so it’s not what you think it’s going to be, the feelings are always changing, and you’re going to have to say goodbye someday. But when you find your love, there is something inside that simply and inexplicably says hello to him. Yes to him. Of course to him. Certainly. Obviously it’s you. There is no choice. I do.

I’ve written a lot about us over the past few years. Here are three of my favorite anniversary posts:

• 20 Years
• 21 Years
• 23 Years In

When I officiated the wedding of some other friends last year, I said that “marriage isn’t a commitment you make just once. Rather marriage allows you the opportunity to choose that person again and again. This can happen in moments of joy, such as today, looking at your partner and feeling overwhelmed by love, knowing this is your person and you are hers, and choosing to commit publicly and legally to your partnership. This choice also happens in some of the darkest moments, when things are hard. Over the course of a long marriage, there are many opportunities to choose. You commit yourself to this person over and over again.”

Today, 24 years in, I choose Eric again. I can’t help it. He’s my favorite.