Blake and I just got renewed for Season 19. I even made a mug.

This is how I think about our anniversary. It’s not “another year together.” That’s what you say when you’re counting. This is more like casting. The network looked at the ratings, weighed the options, and decided to keep us on the air.

I’m kidding. Mostly.

But there’s also truth in it. Long marriages aren’t one continuous story. They’re a series of renewals. Some seasons are dramatic. Some are quiet. Some you barely survive. And some, you look up and realize, hey, we’re still here, and still choosing this.

But the thing that doesn’t make it onto the anniversary card is what we’ve survived to get here.

What the statistics say

Parents who lose a child are significantly more likely to divorce. Some studies say the odds nearly double. The grief is just too big. It moves through two people differently, on different timelines, in different emotional languages. And somewhere in that difference, a lot of couples lose each other.

Connor was Blake’s stepson. Not his biological child, but his chosen one. Which adds its own complexity. Blake didn’t grieve someone he made. He grieved someone he decided to love.

And he stayed in the marriage.

Through the worst year. Through the years after that. And through the version of me that could barely function, and the version that slowly came back, and the version I’m still becoming.

That’s what Season 19 actually means. Not just “we made it another year.” But we survived the thing that ends most people. And we’re still choosing each other.

The energy this week

Something shifted last week. If you felt something surfacing, that’s just what this season does. It asks you to face what’s real.

And this week, the energy turns inward. Think of it as integration. The transformation that doesn’t announce itself, but settles in slowly. A kind of power you reclaim by staying and choosing again.

This is a good week for quiet commitments and saying the thing simply. For tending what you’ve already built instead of starting something new.

And then there’s Sunday

Mother’s Day.

The world wants this day to be simple. Flowers, brunch, a card with a poem you didn’t write.

But for some of us, it’s more complicated than that.

I’m a mother. That doesn’t stop being true just because Connor is gone. But the day doesn’t fit the way it used to. It’s a celebration of something I am and something I’ve lost, simultaneously. And the Hallmark version doesn’t have a card for that.

If Mother’s Day is complicated for you, because of loss, or estrangement, or a relationship that didn’t go the way you hoped, or a child you’re missing, or didn’t have, I just want you to know you’re allowed to feel more than one thing. You’re allowed to skip the brunch and honour what’s true instead of performing what’s expected.

The belief that won’t survive this week

“Staying is the same as settling.”

It’s not. When you could leave, when it would be easier to leave, and when the world would understand if you left, staying is one of the most powerful things a person can do.

Settling is giving up. Staying is choosing. Over and over. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Season 19 isn’t the same as Season 1. The butterflies are gone. The drama has (mostly) settled. But what’s left is something sturdier. Something that’s been tested.

That’s what love looks like after it’s been through the fire.

Why this matters

This week is about renewal, but the quiet kind, not the dramatic reinvention or the big announcement. The steady, unglamorous act of choosing again. Maybe choosing the marriage, or the identity, or the life that’s yours, even when it doesn’t look the way you thought it would.

Blake and I got renewed for Season 19. The ratings are solid. The storylines are quieter than they used to be. And so far, every May, we look at each other and say, ‘Yeah. Let’s keep going.’

If you’re in a season of staying, whether that’s in a relationship, a role, or a life you didn’t quite plan, maybe that’s just love, doing what love does. Quietly, stubbornly, and one renewal at a time.

Jonni

P.S. To every mother holding something complicated this Sunday, I see you. You’re just doing it real.

P.P.S. And yes, the mug is real.