When I was young I’d sworn I’d never marry. I’d understood, back then, that commitment was a trap that closed off otherwise accessible exit routes. Then I had therapy for ten years and learned that commitment was a gift, the ability to give your heart to another. To forsake all others.

Then, more than a decade into marriage, I had to relearn that it’s also the other thing, the trap. It’s both. I felt stupid, having to relearn something that, thirty years ago, I’d already known. Together, the two truths were heavier than they were separately. I held tight to them both.