On this date, 14 years ago, we got married. (It’s a picture of a picture because we got married back before people got digital copies. In fact, I’m pretty sure our photographer shot using actual film.)
Now, the rule of thumb in pretty picturesque bloggerland is that you write the wonderful and amazing and good – especially about your spouse. Because it’s public. And you do not show your cracks in public. It’s better to make everyone think that you have it all under control and that your biggest problem is which pinterest project to tackle today.
Well, I’m going to say this: Jesse is wonderful and amazing and good. He’s also almost completely my opposite in every imaginable way so quite regularly drives me bat shit crazy. Honesty, folks. You’ll always find a good dose of that here. The reverse is also true (but Jesse would probably be too kind to ever say that because of that whole completely my opposite thing).
But in all seriousness, any of you who have been committed to someone for any length of time know that there are years and then there are years. Some years are smooth sailing, some go by so uneventfully they are lost to the ether and then every so often…you’ll have a year full of surprises (and not the good kind of SURPRISE! but the Dear God, can we just catch a break, PLEASE), and setbacks, and life-altering-big-decision-where-do-we-go-from-here conversations, and all you can do is hold on and hope the crazy rollercoaster will stay on the rails. You know, a hard year.
We’ve had one of those.
I look at the picture of that young girl above. Her ideas about marriage, and life, and love were all so precious. She didn’t have one iota of a clue about what marriage looked like. She was completely oblivious the future times when the only thing holding it all together would be a scrap of love and a whole lot of white knuckled stubbornness. And I’m grateful for that…because I can tell you, that girl wouldn’t have done it.
This girl is glad she did. Because if I was going to white knuckle a part of my life with anyone, it would be Jesse for a million and one reasons. This isn’t that kind of post, so I won’t name them all here.
But he’s helped me build a life in the last 14 years that is wonderful, and amazing, and good. At least most of the time.