It seems like everywhere I turn lately, people are celebrating anniversaries and milestones, the chance to take stock of how life has changed.
This week, my husband and I will celebrate our 10-year anniversary – no doubt we’re not spring chickens any more, starry-eyed passionate kids with more dreams than money, but we’re not ancient, long-time loves either, our hair grey and our eyes rheumy, holding knotted hands as we take walks in the woods.
No, we are very much in the practical stage of marriage, working out who will look after the kids and when; dividing chores; paying bills; and arguing over who has misplaced the remote, or the wallet or the truck keys (it’s always him).
He made the proposal on a crystal clear day on a Nova Scotian beach, where I was going to school. I felt a moment of terror at this personal ocean change that was in front of me, a university student freshly graduated. But my fear settled as I realized I had faith in him, and knew that life was not steering our hearts wrong.
When we announced that we were getting married, more than one friend tried to dissuade us gently from it.
“You just met!” and “You’ve barely spent any time with him/her!” were a few of the things we heard after our whirlwind courtship and engagement. I’m guessing friends put our odds of making it as the same odds that Trump was going to be a presidential candidate back when he was still yelling at would-be entrepreneurs, “You’re fired!”
But like Trump, I think we’ve defied a few people’s expectations.
Marrying someone I knew deeply in some ways and hardly at all in others, saw us both have some growing pains. We realized we had some really opposed political ideas, that both of us could go red and dig in our heels and never make the other one agree. (That’s still the case, although lately most of the debate circles on whether Hillary Clinton really is more unlikeable to people just because she’s a woman).
He realized he had a cheap wife, who would rather take a couple of extra ketchup packets home from the restaurant than buy an actual bottle. I realized he liked to buy things, and the bigger and shinier. Too bad hiding his wallet never works for long (OK, so sometimes it isn’t always him that misplaces it).
He realized that I was obsessed with tidiness, and couldn’t go to bed without the house being clean. I realized he had his own neuroticisms, about not having to listen to people eating and paperwork to be organized, preferably at perfect angles to each other.
We accepted and made space for each other’s neuroticisms, and tried to listen to what each needed from the other (unless it’s him telling me how to drive, during which times I have to fight the temptation not to push him out of the car).
But while adult, grown relationships involve compromise and planning, of making space for each other, you never want to lose sight of the starry-eyed love you had in the beginning. I know for myself, I never want to lose sight of seeing in my husband the same young man that made a proposal on the beach, a man who always knew what he wanted and knew that if he set his mind on it, he could do anything. He’s still that man, except with a more extensive set of tools and the impressive ability to do home renovations while supervising and feeding all the kids that are in and out of our house in the summer.
As for me, ten years ago, I was so scared and worried about my future. Little did I know that taking that giant leap into the future and unknown, to embrace love and faith, was going to be the best decision of my life, and give me all the gifts in life I hold most dear, my children, my friends, my job, my home and at the root of it all, my amazing husband.
