This day three years ago

Mike and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary yesterday. We ate take out dinner on our front porch in the warm evening air, went for a walk down to the lake to watch Ampersand chase ducks, and watched a movie. It was quiet, and introspective, and wonderful. I spent a fair amount of time yesterday during the day thinking about our wedding day, 3 years previously, 3 miles away. It was truly a wonderful day. It’s all a bit of a blur of excitement and smiling faces and sunshine and dancing and food. It couldn’t have been better.

But despite the popular claim that your wedding day is often the happiest of your life, for me it was not. It was a wonderful day, but it was also the culmination of tons of planning and waiting and stress and people and having to remember things and do things and …. you get the idea.

One of the happiest days of my life was the day after our wedding, when we ate breakfast in some greasy local restaurant in Bonners Ferry (good hashbrowns), and wasted 10 bucks at the casino, and drove up through the forested mountains to Canada. We looked at the beautiful wild scenery, and took silly pictures along the way, of trash cans and lions and happy me in a frumpy shirt, and listened to Canadian NPR and giggled/chuckled at the announcers’ Canadian accents, and we imitated them incessantly. We drove and drove, and then we sat in a long line of cars next to a smoldering forest while they tried to put out the fire up ahead so we could get to Banff. We chatted with this nice lady who poured over our map with us on the hood of our car and discussed the merits of the different routes across BC to the coast. We got to Banff finally and checked into our hotel to find this amazing suite with a huge tiled Jacuzzi tub, and a silly oval shower (took a picture of that too) and ate dinner at a restaurant with great food, and walked around the town and looked at stuff.

We were together, married at last after 4-ish years of dating, and it was just us two and I have never felt happier or more complete. It was simple, and calm contentment, and sharing a new experience. It was the start of the rest of our lives together. I have never met anyone else I can be so happy to spend so much time with, doing anything and nothing.

Before we did it I honestly didn’t think that getting married would be that much different than how serious our relationship and commitment was already. I have come to realize in the 3 years since that saying those vows in a formal ceremony, witnessed by family and friends, being tied legally as well, is sometimes the glue that holds you together. Or maybe it’s more like a rubber band. We work hard at our marriage. Sometimes very, very, drainingly hard. Sometimes it’s no effort at all, and the joy fills me until I tremble and feel like gravity has given way. And when those hard times come, our rubber band might stretch but always holds us and pulls us back together.

I have grown up a fair bit in the last 3 years. So much has happened in our lives. I feel like I’m not exactly the same person I was, and Mike as well. We are rather like intertwined trees growing on a mountainside, and the sun and wind and storms go past us and leave their mark, and we grow stronger with each year.

I love you Mike. Happy Anniversary. With you I will brave whatever challenges come our way and share in the joys and treasure every day.