A Little Ditty About Marriage

Today is our wedding anniversary and it’s only fitting that I offer a ditty about marriage… Except it’s not really a ditty… It’s more of a blog post. (I hope you wordsmiths enjoyed that. You’re welcome.) Let’s dance, shall we?

I never really understood the saying “I married my best friend.” I threw the phrase around because it was romantic. I even put it in our wedding program because it was the thing to do. When we got married we were young and naive and knew nothing about marriage. Hubbz was a hot, tall, Italian with sexy facial hair and a rockin’ gym bod… And he sure did take great care of me. He doted on me like no man ever had and he bought me really amazing things and took me to really fancy places. I sure did love him a lot, but my “best friend”? I mean, I don’t know about all that. Before you get all judgy on me for being a horrible human being, I can confidently say that I wasn’t his BFF either. To say we had no idea what sacrificial love meant, is the understatement of the decade.

After 13 years together and 8 years of marriage, after a million amazing memories and some soul-rocking questionable choices, here we are… Married… And BFFs. Woah. The dust has settled from our self-inflicted wounded years- though every once in awhile a smoldering rock will bubble up from beneath the surface. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s to remind us to be humble and how precious marriage really is.

I invite you to raise your metaphorical glasses of Moët and cheers with me…

Cheers to young love. The times that all you put forward is your best foot. Romantic vacations and many dinner dates. Moving past the “Netflix and chill” to a more refined let’s actually spend some time together and talk… But, I mean, THEN let’s Netflix and chill.

Cheers to engaged love. When he finally puts the big, sexy wedding rock on that pretty little french manicured finger. The times so full of dreams. House hunting (in our case house building) and wedding planning. Picking out counter tops and paint and wedding dresses and flowers… Knowing in the gut of your heart that you are the Princess and your Prince Charming has arrived and swept you off your feet.

Cheers to early married love. The honeymoon stage is in full swing and cloud 9 never felt so good. You can’t get enough of each other and life as you know it is married bliss. You might pack on a few pounds but it doesn’t matter because you are SO. IN. LOVE. You get to play house… BUT FOR REALS! This phase lasts a good couple of years and it is SO. MUCH. FUN.

Cheers to love when you don’t feel it. This is the part no one talks about when they are congratulating you on marrying the love of your life. It doesn’t get brought up in wedding toasts. This love is the hard love. It’s the love that you have to force because you just aren’t feeling it. It’s the “What do you mean we aren’t going out tonight?!” and the “We have to stay home this weekend because yardwork doesn’t do itself.” For a girl who lived for the dance-on-the-table moments, this love was a wrecking ball to my life. This is the love that makes you want to walk away. This is the love that makes you think the grass is greener in other pastures and in far away big cities. The truth about that thinking is that the grass is greener where you water it and if we are being really honest… There is poop in the other pastures too.

Cheers to love that is broken. It might be odd to celebrate this kind of love but this is the love that, for us, was necessary. This is the love the was the catalyst for change in our life and in our marriage. This is the love where everything has fallen apart and you both stand there amid the rubble that you have both helped to create. This is the love where you look around and life as you know it has become unrecognizable. With wounded bodies and broken hearts you begin to survey the destruction. These are the moments where you stand there in shock that it got to this point yet part of you is thankful, because for the first time ever, you are seeing each other, real and raw and broken. There is a beauty in this broken that I can now only look back on with gratitude.

Cheers to healing love. This is the love that we cannot take any credit for. This is the love where we fell on our knees- both literally and figuratively, and invited Christ into our marriage. Before you roll your eyes, get all judgy-judgy and stop reading, let me explain. I used to think people who were all “Horray Jesus!” were weird. We didn’t need Jesus because, “pshhht, we got this” …Except we didn’t have this. What we thought we had, we ripped to shreds and then set on fire (and between you and me, we were both kind of like, “huh, weird that we can’t put back together that which we just incinerated.”) The road to healing was long, arduous and to be frank, sometimes totally friggen’ sucked. There were tears and fights and blame that got thrown around like confetti… THEN… Then there was peace. I don’t know the day or the hour or even the reason but after a while, there was a shift in both of us. A light illuminated somewhere and love appeared. A love that we had never been able to give each other before. It wasn’t romantic or sexy or any of the things the world boasts about. It was a love that was peaceful and real. A love that was far from perfect but was made perfect through Him.

Cheers to the love of a lifetime. This is the love that is built on strong foundations. The love that you build lifetimes of children and weddings and grandchildren and graduations on. The love that ebbs and flows but resonates peace, grace, mercy and forgiveness at every pass.

It’s not perfection, it’s commitment.

It’s not all bells and whistles, it’s finding peace in the mundane.

It’s not being right, it’s being sacrificial.

It’s not about doing you, it’s about doing us.

It’s the strand of three cords that cannot be broken.

Raise that metaphorical glasses of Moët and cheers with me, to marriage. To the good, to the bad, to the ugly and most important, to the healing, to the redemption and to the peace that surpasses all understanding… And also to the hot, tall, Italian with an amazing beard and a (still) rockin’ gym bod that I call, Hubbz.