Nine Years and Counting

Today is my nine year wedding anniversary. Nine years ago today I walked so confidently down the aisle the entire wedding party thought I'd taken a Xanax. The theme song to the ABC miniseries North and South played, growing in intensity as I waited behind the door for my big entrance. Then as the music hit the climax, the doors dramatically swung open. Everyone's breath caught in their throats, including mine. I walked my way to the front of the church to the man I knew I would spend my life with since our very first date and maybe before that even. We said, "I do," and then our life began. All of our crazy adventures, as we call them, began. Buying and building and remodeling and selling houses, Trying for biological children, facing infertility head on, deciding on adoption, raising money for adoptions, raising more money for adoptions. Interesting vacations like going to Forks, Washington. Learning how to parent and how to balance it with being good spouses. 

So many trips to IKEA where we bought so much it took us an hour or more to figure out how to pack the car. Most of those trips resulting in luggage being strapped on top of the car, and for our most recent trip renting a U-Haul trailer for our IKEA trappings because we now have a second car seat to work around. I always look over the receipt trying to remember what I bought. All the names are crazy Swedish words so it does little to jog my memory, and as I fold up the receipt that is about six feet long I feel guilty that I can only recall the can opener and the knife sharpener when the receipt is six feet long. I can't remember what I filled my big yellow bag with, but I remember the adventure I'd just experienced with my husband. 

He's so good to me. If you can believe it, I'm a bit high maintenance. And I require an even higher level of maintaining when I'm trying to keep two kids happy while I'm deciding how I can fit the wonderful organizational ideas into my life. My wonderful husband knows me. He knows when he shouldn't ask if I want him to change the baby because he already knows the answer. He knows when to suggest a snack and to sit down for a bit when I'm having low blood sugar and starting to get irritable. He completes me. We are truly each other's other half, and together we are whole. 

Our life has changed so much since that day that started it all. I have changed so much since that day. Sometimes it seems that people within a marriage grow at different rates or in different directions and find themselves waking up to virtual strangers after nine years. My husband and I are not that way. We have grown in sync, matching each other flawlessly. We are two trained Ficus trees seamlessly woven together to make one strong tree. I’m not saying our tree doesn’t crook and bend; it does. It’s just that when one of us veers, the other compensates.

Carrying the tree analogy through, I have been feeling the lack of roots lately. Since I’ve been living my independent adult life, I find the commitment of laying down roots a hard one to make. I’ve been in the Nashville Area for over thirteen years now and I’ve never been to a hair stylist twice. Since we’ve been married, my husband and I have rented two homes, bought four homes, and built two additional homes we never got to move into for various reasons. My husband and I have both changed jobs over the years. We've been through six vehicles and two scooters. My son has been at two different daycares and two different schools and he’s only in kindergarten. My family has no roots.

The only thing that never changes is my husband. He is committed to me, even when everything else changes. And as we add to our family, we commit to them too. So even though we are a ball of roots floating through life, the roots are strong and they bind us together. And who knows? Maybe we’ll stay at the new house for a while, dare I say forev… Nope, I can’t even type it.

On this special day thanks to my husband for loving me with every change and growing with me for the past nine years and forever. There, I can type it in that sentence. It's where it belongs. I love you Jamie.