Dear Warren

They tell you that in order to succeed online you need to be very specific about your SEO. They tell you, you have to teach, be informative, become the expert, make evergreen content, write content that is beneficial to the audience. I agree with all of “them”, but sometimes too, you have to remember why you started sharing online at all in the first place.

Blogging was always my place to share, my place to journal, to “online scrapbook” and my place to keep memories to remember forever.

Today, on our 6th year sugar wedding anniversary – I wanted to say, “screw you” to the SEO-wolves and take a long pause to remember our journey.

When I explain to people that I moved to London right after I got married – it’s always a bit confusing. Because I follow it up with – I moved to London so that I could come and live with you – it was exciting because we hadn’t live in the same continent in more than 6 years, but yes, we were married.
“Oh…” people say – “…so you were doing long distance then?”
“No” I reply – “we really weren’t.”
So to get clarity people ask – “so Warren was living in London, and you were newly back from South Korea living in South Africa, but you weren’t doing long distance and you weren’t dating… but then you got engaged?”
And I reply with, “Yep, that’s pretty much it – and then we got married. So basically, when I moved to London it was the first time we had been together on the same continent in over 6 years, but we were also already married.” (Yes, you can imagine the nightmare of trying to prove this was a legit relationship to the immigration officials)

Each time I tell this story, I think to myself – “Wow – that shit was really crazy! I just decided to go ahead and get married to someone who I really hadn’t even known in 6 years”

And then it reminds me how much of our relationship has just been this huge, incredible leap of trust and faith.

If I think back to the person I was when you SURPRISE flew out to propose to me, I was 100%, 180 degrees a different person than the one I am now. I had just come out of a very stressful relationship and my sense of self was so rattled – but something in you trusted in the person you had met all those years ago. (crazy circumstances and all).

And something in me, trusted it right back.

If I think about what makes us and the relationship we have so special is that this trust and this faith in us, runs deep. It runs wider than continents, longer than time, and more expansively than space.

I suppose we had little inklings of the depths of this trust in us, over the years, as we truly let each other go – to explore what else was out there in this world. We had inklings of it when I came to visit you – “to see if we were still friends” but since then we’ve had so many memories and moments that I wanted to leave here to remember.

Like that moment on our wedding day when I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of panic standing up at the altar in my wedding dress with a sudden flood of thoughts going through my head like “WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?”

You must have sensed my panic as you squeezed my hand and whispered “it’s me” and instantaneously I dropped back into trusting this journey together. Pity we don’t have any pictures of that moment (lol, haha!), but I will remember it and the overwhelming feeling as clear as ever.

Like soon after getting married and moving into our first flat together in Wimbledon and not really knowing how to be married or what to do, as we hadn’t ever lived together and had hardly ever even been together in the same country – so we just sat awkwardly on the couch looking at all the boxes. Then you cracked open a beer and said, “well I guess this is it!” And we both cracked up laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all.

We’ve had awesome first Christmasses together where we didn’t have decorations for our Christmas tree so I hung 100 rolls of washi tape on the branches, and picnics in the park and biking in the sunshine –

We celebrated our 1st PAPER anniversary with a paper picnic – paper plates, paper blanket to sit on, paper cups, paper straws paper everything – except it rained so relentlessly that we ended up having a candle lit picnic in the lounge which was even more special. We made our first lounge fort out of cushions and duvets and we vowed to “NEVER RETURN!”

We’ve had date nights and late nights and spontaneous nights out – fairy lights and city lights and big sights –

For our 2nd COTTON Anniversary we headed off to COTTONS Rhum shack which was a great idea! (yours, well done) – I woke up early and put cotton balls in the bush outside and made you go “cotton picking” – which, in hindsight was totally lame – but I guess, that’s part of the quirky charm of why you love me? (yes).

We’ve had so many wedding dress adventures together! Paris in the summer, roof top bars and backgammon along the Seine…

Getting sick from eating ONLY TINNED FOOD at the Northern lights (worth it), to some magical-ride adventures in Amsterdam, to laughing out loud, to quirky cocktail bars, to getting scammed, to sangrias in Spain, to rice paddies in Bali, to all night beer and curry in India and nights under the African stars… with rain to chase us under the covers. (We did persevere as long as we humanly could).

Those are some of the big moments – but I’ve loved the small moments just as much. Lying on the couch and watching the sheer DELIGHT on your face (Me? Really? Shock! JOY!) EVERY. TIME. whenever I offer you my lap to lie on to play with your hair while we watch TV.

I love all our physical fun we have together – when we do our “park-gym routines” (once, lol), to when I manage to convince you to do Acro yoga with me (rare), to that time I convinced you to come to a three hour yoga workshop with Patrick Beach with me – hoping it would make you fall in love with the practice (really it just made me fall more in love with you – whilst you fell in love with Patrick Beach).

That one time in India practicing yoga together and lying in Savasana holding hands (LIFE. MADE!!!) (Side note: I promise to try any fishing thing you want me to!!)

To that time I convinced you to come to the Tate Modern with me and even more magically convinced you to paint a giant canvas with me… in an “inspired-red-wine-and-art-evening-in” – (which I’ve now since painted over – soz about that.)

On re-reading this it seems I manage to convince you to do a lot of things with me – so thank you for being up for it all! Life is funner when you just dive in, no?!?

Our 3rd LEATHER anniversary I took you to the Leather Bottle and you took us up to overlook the city for the most amazing romantic dinner. We dressed up in our fancy kit and it was just perfect.

My favourite adventures over all these years are the ones that just “happened” just because we wanted to hang out. I’ve loved the cozy backgammon fireplace afternoons in the Village and trying to find new places to adventure to, but just as much I’ve loved the couch days and curling up with popcorn and movies.

I love British summer with you! (Ok, disclaimer: gotta admit, I love summer in general), but really with you it’s extra special – the late days, the festivals in the park, (thanks for standing next to me – even when I’m wearing my handmade flower power fanny-pack), the good music, the great vibes, the summer sunshine, hanging out at Udder Belly – LIVING OUR BEST LIVES!

It was the best and scariest buying our first home together. Getting “the call” from the estate agent whilst we were hanging out on Wimbledon Common – you were so nervous you were shaking all over! (Side memory: remember when we nearly set Wimbledon Common on fire? That was fun.)

DIY-ing our home to get ready to move in – was next LEVEL. Like remember when I bought us matching overalls (#romance) and we used toothpicks to try get the dust out the skirting board. LOL, JOKES. Thank goodness we had the amazing hurricane of the Dad to help us! (We’d probably still be skirting the skirting boards right now on our own).

Remember that one time to celebrate our 4th Anniversary of FRUIT AND FLOWERS and I called you at work one Friday to tell you that the water pipe had burst and water was leaking all over the house. (Totally believable as we’d just renovated the bathroom/kitchen). I was in a “panic” and needed you to come home! You tried calmly to talk me through how to find the water mains – but I needed you to come home NOW! Thankfully – you dropped things at work as quick as you could and had your fastest sprint cycle home to try help me… only to discover there was no water pipe leaking, that I had cleared it all with your boss to leave early on Friday, there was a cold beer waiting and a weekend away planned to go berry and fruit picking in Kent. (And that hippiest of hippy air bnb house we stayed in!)

Our 5th WOOD wedding anniversary fell on Friday, I was teaching as I remember so we had a dinner in – you bought me a super fun wooden card and a Bonzai (which I’ve since killed – sorry Bonzai, I didn’t mean it) and I bought you a wooden box with a bottle of wine – that will be nicely ripened for our 10th anniversary – which, if I’m judging how quickly these last 6 years have gone will be just around the corner!

So this year I wanted to collect a little online memory bank of all the years we’ve shared together. We’ve had SO many lols together… and if I’m really honest – in 6 years together we’ve had two major disagreements: that one time ABOUT THE GARBAGE and that other time WHEN YOU MADE ME CHOOSE A PLACE FOR DINNER. OH. MY. SOUL.

But, if I think about those two incidents – they are very different. I was very different between those two moments in our history. We as a couple were and are very different between those two moments. We have really grown together in a really deep understanding of how we work together. As I’ve noticed and grown more within myself with a very true and honest understanding of what it means to be vulnerable, what it means to HONESTLY communicate, what it really means to let go of being the winner/the victim/the hero/the right one, I’ve noticed how the space and time between a ripple that forms and our ability to return to deep stillness, peace and love gets shorter and smaller each and every time. It really amazes me. Thank you for doing this work with me. Each and every day.

So really this message isn’t to tell you how much I love you. What does that mean these days anyway?

This message is here to thank you.

Thank you for trusting me and trusting in us. Thank you for having faith in our relationship, right from the very beginning, way, way before I did. Thank you for showing up each day committed to making us work. Thank you for doing the work with me – thank you for “talking about the stuff that is easier not to talk about” and thank you for giving me the space and encouragement to do the same, even when it feels as scary as ever. Thank you for being a person in this world who teaches me so much about what it means to live with compassion and kindness and patience. Thank you for being so completely present with me every time I talk to you. Thank you for never being too busy for me or too tired for me. Thank you for truly SEEING me. Thank you for showing up for me and thank you for holding me, supporting me and showing me love in the many ways that you do.

I’m so very grateful that we decided to take this leap of faith together.

I trust you, I trust us and I trust this journey we are on.

Thank you for being with me through it all.

Happy 6th Anniversary, “my sugar”.

(had to).