On this day, eleven years ago, Annie and I pledged our lives to each other. Almost daily the vows play back in my head. My brain tries to spruce that moment up, it tries to change my voice into something that was powerful and confident.
The reality is my voice stammered and mumbled. My hands shook. My eyes had a shimmer in them. I was terrified; not of marriage, but of being in front of an audience, of screwing up. I was awestruck by what I was actually doing, by what was happening, by all these people who came from near and far to witness the event.
For life. My God! For the rest of our lives.
We were kids! We knew what we were doing, but I don’t think we actually knew what we were doing.
Eleven years later, I’m not as lean as I was on that day, there are a couple of wrinkles on my face…I missed a couple of haircuts. We have been given the privilege and honor of nurturing and guiding two beautiful souls through life.
We’re tired. We never really understood what it’s like to be tired until we had children. They are probably shortening our lives, but that’s okay. You need to sacrifice to do this job right, the quantity might decrease, but the quality goes off the charts. I Love the payoff.
Through sickness and in health—there’s a part of the vow I wasn’t really appreciating at the time. We’ve had a pretty notable amount of both. There have been times where we had the appearance of both of us standing together when actually one of us was holding the other up. We’ve suffered through a number of tests and we’ve emerged each time with a quieter but greater strength.
With this blog, I put my best face forward. I tend to focus on the joys. It’s a regular attempt at honesty with varying degrees of success – in the greater picture I am a joyful person. When you take a few steps back, you see small dips on a line that is constantly moving upward.
Joy is nothing without sorrow. Joy is empty and meaningless without something like sorrow to put some dark around that light, and make that light shine even brighter. Tears are the shoulders joy stands on.
We know Joy.
Marriage is possibly the greatest human experience. In a marriage you get to witness someone at their weakest and most vulnerable and you are witnessed at your weakest and most vulnerable just as you get to witness and be witnessed at your greatest.
You are a witness.
Marriage is nothing without Love. Many times Love is the only thing pulling a Marriage through.
It’s been eleven years today. I’m wearing reading glasses these days. The Living Room looks like a hurricane came through. My toddler looks feral. My wife is wearing her most comfortable, and ugliest pajama pants right now. When I get up from this laptop, I’m going to walk across the living room and give her a kiss, but not before I am stopped by Lydia to admire her newest picture.
I’m in Love with it all. The Love never let up, the Love never stopped. I’d have to say it’s been a pretty good eleven years. I’m game for a few more decades!