I proposed to Chelsea when I was seventeen. She said yes. A month later, my head went through a windshield.
Despite the coma, despite the brain injury, despite the re-learning—despite everything—Chelsea and I got married the day we had planned: March 26, 2016.
For the past decade, I have been telling you about the person who survived the coma and TBI. I should have been telling you about the person who stayed through it all.
For our ten-year anniversary, I wrote Chelsea’s story. Not my version of her story. Not the version where she appears as a character in mine. Her story—from the very beginning, long before she ever met me. Writing it required me to stop being the narrator and become something closer to a witness. I believe it is the best thing I have ever written, and I placed it somewhere worthy of her. It is coming. When it arrives, I hope you will read it.
Last week, Chelsea learned where her story goes next. She matched into dermatology at West Virginia University—the field she has worked toward through medical school, through marriage, through four children, through every version of a life that was never supposed to be easy. Our family will spend one more year in Louisville before relocating to Morgantown in the summer of 2027.
Ten years today, babe. Happy anniversary. The best thing about my life has always been yours.
xoxo
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