It’s not two decades yet, but yet it still feels like some sort of a milestone.
18 years.
My marriage is an adult today.
Dear Lord it feels so much longer!
I mean that in no offense at all to my dear husband. In fact we have known each other a bit longer than that. We are college sweethearts who jumped into a relationship almost out of necessity and out of the fact that we truly felt we had a thing that just might work. Started dating in January 1998, moved in together in May because both of our family situations at home were not good. We were engaged to be married a year later, and we were on our way to Florida for our first big jobs and adventure.
Yeah, that didn’t work out the way we hoped it would. I ended up getting a job back in Pittsburgh six month later. Being adults and filling out forms for insurance and benefits became an expensive nightmare. Everyone kept telling us “you know, this is a lot easier if you two would just get married.” So that’s what we did.
Seriously, we did it just like that. Threw a wedding together on November 13, 1999 with less than 50 people with just under a month of planning. I honestly wanted to do a Justice of the Peace thing, he wouldn’t do it. He made me go through the whole church ceremony. I guess you could say we compromised. That tiny ceremony was the best thing ever. I have no regrets, other than I would have done a more tropical honeymoon. (But again, the time factor.)
Less than two months later, in the tiny, gross apartment we were living in, with both of us working overnight radio jobs, we found out we would be two no more.
Somehow we managed to find a decent place to live just a few short months after that, and our first son was born in September 4, 2000. Six months later, an on-air radio job took us to the other side of the state, where we stayed for well over two years, until we found out we were expecting another child. With no family in that area, we took the jump, without much in job prospects or a place to live in place, and came home. Things fell into place, and our second son was born on September 2, 2003.
We moved around a bit and finally settled with our boys in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, getting out of radio and completing our family with a daughter on February 20, 2008. I began to stay home with the kids and he worked on his IT degree and finding jobs that would put him in the field.
Then, our middle son was diagnosed with autism, and that spontaneous spirit returned. We put our house on the market after the school district we were in refused to help our son, and we moved to the North Hills. We started foundations to get him a service dog, we started other efforts to help other families. We endured family loss, a severe sickness that saw me hospitalized for nearly two years and the loss of four organs. We helped our kids through the grief and loss. We cheer their victories, and we are here for their hurts.
As for us, I feel the two of us are at our best when we are those two spontaneous, crazy people. It seems reckless and irresponsible, but it works for us and it gets things done.
We actually, on the inside, do budget and are accountable, but there has to be a faith about life and an ability to leave things up to God. When we run into problems or issues, I think it’s when we get away from being who we are and getting away from where we originally came from. I think in the future, we set those goals, and just go for it. We really believed and really didn’t care about how we made it happen. We were going to get married, we were going to move, etc. Now sometimes we worry about details, money, and other things. We need to be those kids again. We need to have more faith.
I think that’s what you realize when your marriage becomes an adult. You look back on your lives together, and all of these things start to make sense now.
So happy 18th Anniversary honey. I love you with every fiber of my being. I love you for the crazy. I love you for the calm. I love you for the get up and go. I love you for the center you bring into my life. Let’s spend the next 18 years being more spontaneous and determined, and having more faith. I think nothing but good things will come from it.
