It’s 1:27 in the morning and I’m sitting at a stoplight at the corner of Lewis and Sterns in Temperance, Michigan. The defroster is doing little to erase the injury that my weary sighs leave on the windshield. It’s 1:27 in the morning and I’m suddenly all-too-aware of just how cold it is outside and how lonely it is in my car. I wasn’t prepared for either.

Thirty-six hours before, I was at home in Kentucky, surrounded by my wife and dog, the two constant familiars in my life, unaffected by either loneliness or cold. But now, as this sadly unneeded stoplight flips from red to green and my car begrudgingly rolls forward, I can’t shake one or the other, despite my best efforts.

You never realize just how much you’ve come to depend on a person until they’re not there. When you are married, you’re granted more than a piece of paper and a new title, you’re given a partner that, for the better part of the next however many years, will always be with you, sharing the same experiences. Situations that in your previously single life used to be awkward are now a bit easier. Tasks and duties that before had seemed harder now exist as a shared load. Once you’re married you’ll slowly start to complain about how marriage has purged your life of certain single luxuries, but you won’t even recognize that The Shift has taken place. And suddenly, standing in a room full of people devoid of familiar faces, you’ll turn only to find that you truly are alone. Your constant partner of the past however many years is not there to share this uneasiness or efface the aching self-consciousness that is settling in. For the first time in years, you’ll realize just how much you’ve come to rely on another human being, despite proclamations of being self-sufficient and independent. For the first time in years, you’ll want to cry.

To my friends who were married this past weekend, please never forget this: as much as the proverbial road may bend and turn overgrown with obstacles insurmountable, you’ll always have a partner traveling with you, walking by your side and facing the same challenges. And to my beautiful wife who agreed to marry me two years ago today, thank you for being that person who’s always at my side. I never knew just how much I love and depend on you every single day.