Ae u-esteliach nad, estelio han, estelio ammen.
If you trust nothing else, trust this, trust us.

I've been waiting a few weeks to post this piece, as I wanted to make sure the first person to see it was who I made it for. Anniversary art celebrating 9 years of sharing a life together, for my . Though most of our journey has been relatively smooth sailing we haven't been without our storms. Life has a way of testing you sometimes but I've learned that what is truly meant to be will always endure.
Yesterday was his first day back home after being gone for six weeks at rehab in Texas. He has battled some mental health issues over the years, resulting in some unhealthy coping mechanisms, the major one being weed. It started as something recreational but kinda turned into a crutch over the years and rather than dealing with the root issues directly, he numbed them. Things finally came to a head back in November when he was trying to take a break from it and we ultimately decided rehab would be the best approach for getting him the help he needed.
The program was 45 days, which meant he'd be away for six weeks, meaning we'd be apart for Thanksgiving, our anniversary, Christmas and New Years Eve. It also meant I'd be spending six weeks in relative isolation since I don't drive and don't really have much of a social circle. As difficult as we both knew it was going to be being apart for that long, especially at this time of year, we knew it had to be done, so he left on November 18th and just got back home lastnight.
The place he went approaches addiction by treating the mental health issues that lead to drug and alcohol abuse, with therapy (both individual and group), an equine therapy program, and if needed, medication. I'll leave it for him to go into more detail about his journey there, but that is the gist of it from my perspective.
Meanwhile here I've been, alone most days except when our roommate was home, doing whatever I could to stay occupied or entertained, and not focus on watching the clock or the calendar. It sucked, I won't lie. I'm a very introverted person and I usually enjoy plenty of time alone, but even I have my limits. I had days where I was fine and days where I was downright lonely and the boredom was making me a bit nuts. My best friend wasn't here and I missed him so terribly. But what came out of all this for me was lots of time to focus inward and be creative. You guys will see very soon what came of all this time to myself. ;)

So, belated as it is, this is our yearly anniversary art of Luthien and Pachua - this time I went for something closer to who they are as characters and pulled inspiration from Lord of the Rings. The elvish script below the art is what you see at the top of this description, a line from the movies spoken by Arwen when she is giving Aragorn encouragement for the difficulties he's about to face. When I started it, we had no idea that rehab was even on the horizon, but it somehow turned out to be pretty fitting for our situation.

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