Exactly one year ago today, in just a few hours, I would meet Kelsey for the first time.

Today, we’re married.

After 49 years, I fell in love and stayed there in my 50th.

I’d invited her to the Nutcracker, rather belatedly.

We’d been “talking” on Instagram for some time, by that point. We’d first “met” when her bestie saw my post on IG about looking for love six months or so before. We’d talked for awhile and decided to go on a date when she’d be out the following summer. And then life moved on.

Just after I lost my race for City Council, we reconnected. Almost immediately, on my side, I realized she was…wow. Special. Looking for many of the same things I’d detailed in my post: vegan. Meditation. Service. Biking. Children. She didn’t mind that I was a bit old. I’ve always been a little…slow. I late bloomer. I didn’t mind that she had a child (I was delighted—and we both wanted more children).

So, after a phone call, after a facetime, after hundreds of messages—all sweet and fun and kind and getting-to-know slowly and thoroughly, like old-fashioned pen pals)—I invited her out to the Nutcracker. To my surprise and delight, she said she’d look into it. She confirmed a little later, after finding childcare. She came out, off the bus from the airport, and she was taller than she’d seemed online. Great style. Kind. She walked Winfield to my home. I’d assured her that if we didn’t hit it off, worst case, we’d have a fine time and be pals. She could stay in my guest room, no funny business, or stay with a pal she knew out here.

We hit it off.

After 1,000 tries, my best advice is, keep trying. Learn from your mistakes. Stay open, but discern. Don’t lower your bar, but sharpen your communication about what you’re looking for. Make friends with yourself and your life, for if love never comes, at least you’ll enjoy this short long precious life.

Love isn’t easy. Like any friendship, we have good days and bad days, we’ve had a few fights. But only a few. And when miscommunication happens, I feel sad, more than angry. As I wrote in my first book,

“…for games are for winners and losers and I do not ever want to win against you, or for you to lose against me, and I do not want to lose against you or for you to win against me. For we are part of the whole, the main, as Donne said—and your gain is mine and my loss is yours. Love is about finding one’s match, which means we shall touch our minds and hearts together at once, and never condescend or aim for any goal between us but the truth.”

Mostly, we laugh. We adventure. We love. We enjoy being boring, too: reading or watching a movie, holding hands. We serve one another, bringing hot water bottles or tea or kisses or, if we’re apart, sharing words and articles and emojis and dreams and sweetnesses. All of this may sound saccharine, but after a lifetime of looking I take none of these for granted.

Relationships are life-extending and a blessing. And, they are occasionally difficult. But as my parents’ Buddhist teacher encouraged, they are great teachers. We are stuck together—happily, and otherwise, and it’s in the otherwise that we learn and grow and soften and deepen our love—not just for one another but for our community, our world, our sweet self.

One year ago today. How quickly things can seed, birth, grow, blossom.