17 years and counting...

It was another beautiful fall day. The trees were plump with ripe leaves, my very favorite mixture of colors covered the mountain behind the beautiful Orthodox church that day. The sun was shining in the clear blue sky. As the frost from the morning thawed everything dripped with a heavy dew. But I didn't notice any of that.

Because today was my wedding day.

I was nineteen. I was naïve. I was bashful. I was self doubting. I was ready to dedicate the rest of my life to my friend of five years who claimed to love me. Was this the "right" decision? That remained to be seen...

He was a gangly "geek" if you will. Geeky in most things like most geeks are...computers, Star Trek, Star Wars, Church theology, politics, etc. He was my opposite, if you will. He was also not at all like my father and not at all the type of person I had imagined marrying some day. But was that a bad thing? I was an Alaskan girl, after all, the state is full of robust hunter like men in all of their manly glory. Was I "supposed" to marry someone like my father? Someone less geeky perhaps? Someone less zealous in life? Someone less intent on having silly old me for themselves?? I really couldn't decide, you see, I hadn't "fallen in love" with him.

He certainly had with me. He had some compelling arguments and had great wit and humor that he used to try and convince me. I had to rely on my gut as my guide. His arguments did convince me that he would never leave me. His arguments convinced me that he loved me and that loving a wife is a husband's job. He convinced me that he had a great career, that he was awesome at what he did and that he would be a great provider so that I could be a mother (my life's dream was to be a stay-at-home-mom).

But, what if?

My indecision caused him great stress (not to mention my own stress). He was patient with me and didn't push me. I wanted to cancel the wedding and he said that was fine. My friend asked me, "do you love him?!" and I had to say yes, but I didn't think I really meant it. But the thing that really stuck in my craw was "Well, what if I let him go?  He runs off and eventually finds himself another woman?" No, that just wouldn't do. I was jealous of him before I ever thought I loved him and before he was mine.

That jealousy caused me to commit to him. I realized that if nothing else, even if I never had those warm fuzzy "in love" feelings that he would love me, take care of me and, if nothing else, be my friend. My gut and my head won the argument against my "heart" because it didn't know what the heck it was doing.

Seventeen years later I am here to report.

I realized those fuzzy feelings are typically feelings of lust. I have lusted my husband on and off for 17 years. Other men too. I tell him about those feelings as he tells me about his. We don't get upset or hurt by it for some reason...many other friends think we're crazy to talk about our "crushes" or "dang, he's hot" sort of things with each other. I don't know why we do it, but we do. The feelings and crushes disappear as soon as we confess them to each other too.*

Love is something different. Love is giving of yourself, it's HARD to love, because love is actions. Constant attention to the person you're supposed to be loving. That is difficult work. I personally suck at it. I didn't realize, until this year that I've had a wall up in our marriage for 17 years. The wall of self hate. That wall has caused me to not let my guard down, not be really giving of myself. This year, I had a giant light bulb go on in my brain and it blew my mind. I have not been the same since.

"You can't truly love someone else until you love yourself."

Very simple, but very true. It his changed me. It has changed the way I see people. It has changed the way I react to people. It has changed the way I talk, treat, respect and act to those closest to me. The ones who needed me to change are beginning to see the new/real me. The one who finally sees that God loves me like His child that I am, and with that true knowledge, it will drastically change a person.

All of this to say simply this:

17 years of marriage is very hard, very good, but mostly hard. It can, however, be done. You have to LOVE, give up your own will constantly, and take a verbal beating from time to time. Conflict in marriage is not a bad thing. If you don't ever fight you won't figure anything out. If you have the capability to simply discuss with no feelings involved, more power to you. My husband is quite fiery and I have discovered I am as well. So our fights are LOUD!

After 17 years of being married to this man I am now: the mother of 6 amazing children, the owner of a self made business of 10 years that I run from my home, not self doubting, still a little bashful in person at first, probably still naïve, confident and self admittedly, awesome.

I thank my husband for most of this (not all, after all, I am awesome). Not only for sticking with me, but encouraging me to come out of my shell, to embrace some of my more insane ideas and run with them. To remind me that I am awesome and I can do great things if I put my mind to it.

The cool thing is that as time has gone on he has grown less geeky and more robust. He has even started hunting in the last five years (that's hot). I think he's very handsome and am VERY glad he's not out there with some other woman. I'm glad he's mine, all mine.

*Please note that this practice of sharing so honestly is NOT for everyone. I am confident in the knowledge that he will never leave me and that is why I don't get offended when he says such things. Most women are not this secure and so I believe this would be hurtful in many marriages, not a positive thing.

15 years

I was talking to my mom the other night, and she asked me about our anniversary. Did we go out? What did we do? Then what, etc. She declared that I should go write a blog post about it since I haven't written in so long and she liked the story...

15 years. It's a big deal. Woop woop, and I say that in my most sarcastic way possible. I know it's a big deal but it's not a big deal. It's just us, silly people, still, yep still here. So off we go (now able to leave our chitlens home ALONE, ) the oldest ones do a fine job of watching the little ones. They also do a fine job of making mac-n-cheese and sort of cleaning up the kitchen too. Let's just say, since we discovered leaving them home ALONE, life has been maaaavalus. Allowing us to go on dates like never before, mostly just getting out of the house, going to my sister's to hang out or just out for a quick bite or a drive...spending alone time for us and for the kids has been a huge bonus.

I decided to put on a skirt for our date. After all it was our anniversary. I told the kids that if they behaved well that day I'd let papa take me out to a movie and dinner. I'm not a huge movie buff and feel like generally they're a waste of a good date since you can't talk. But I digress. We left the house with an hour before the movie began. Hubby couldn't find jeans with out a hole so we headed to Freddys to pick up his annual 2 pairs of black jeans. We found them and I wandered over to the women's clothing section finding some super awesome things that I had to have. When he found me he asked for the time, it was 7:15 and the movie started at 7:25. He gasped and we rushed up to the register. I didn't gasp 'cause I don't really care if we miss previews. After we purchased our clothes I asked him if he wanted to change, he gasped again, No! We're LATE! So off we went.

In the car he decided to try to understand how my brain worked when it came to time sensitivity and he was really trying to wrap his head around how I just don't really care about being late...the conversation didn't get far as the theater is close, but I don't think he'll ever understand.

At the theater (our new big totally awesome one in town) we got there mostly on-time/late-ish depending on who you ask and stood in line for our snacks. I got my popcorn and he got his hot dog, pretty normal for us. He insisted that I go in since he still had to doll up his dog. I sat down in the lit theater with the local commercials playing.

He came in to sit down but accidentally dropped his hot dog onto the floor. "Oh no!" I said, "your hot dog!"

"Oh no!" He said, "My new pants, they have mustard all over them."

This is where my mom asked how he got his new pants on...well, he changed in the car while I drove to the theater.

I assured him his pants would be fine and we could wipe it right off and they'd wash. But your poor hot dog, that can't be saved! He left to get another hot dog, he came back and sat down and ate it.

Him: "What time is it?" Me: "7:45" Him: "What?! I wonder if they know that the movie hasn't started..." Me: "Well, go ask them." He did, so then they started it. But I had to agree with the lady down the row from us who said, "where do we have to go?" I said, "yeah, where? We have a babysitter."

About 15 minutes into the movie the fire alarm started going off, not in the movie we were watching, but in our theater. So the lights automatically turned on, the movie shut off and we left. False alarm. Go back sit down for 5 minutes, still no movie...oh! the movie is back on...not where it shut off and with no sound. Nice. 5 minutes later an employee came in on her walkie talkie telling someone how we had no sound. And then she passed out free movie tickets to everyone...SCORE. 5 minutes later the sound came back on. Did they press their little rewind button and rewind the last 15 minutes of the movie for us? Of course not.

We left the theater at 10:05. Most restaurants in our town close at 10pm on weeknights. So he said, "lets go to the 24 hour diner." Hmm, diner on our anniversary...not much of a choice at this point. We got a pizza (note: try to avoid diner pizza, diners make good eggs, not pizza), he bought me flowers and we went home.

I love my life. I get frustrated with myself, with my emotions, with the constant list of tasks, but when it boils down to it it's a wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

My man and me about 15 years ago.