Eighteen

My marriage is now old enough to vote, which is a good perspective to hold on to, because it may be tempting to think that after that span of time we are grizzled veterans at this blessed union.  I remember how much I thought I knew when I was eighteen years old and that confidence gets a little shaky. Sure, we have gotten through some challenges, we are on the way to raising up a couple of know-it-all kids of our own.  But we haven't quite crossed the threshold of being together longer than we were apart, we're close, but we're not quite there.
In some ways though, I am impressed with how mature our relationship is, and how we have grown up a lot more together than either one of us would have on our own.  That was our vision on this day in 1999: we were going to make each other better, we were going to be complementary parts of new unit that lifted us both up.  Remarkably, that vision still holds up pretty well.  Despite all the things those twenty something kids didn't know and all the things we thought were going to be different, we still function better together than we do apart.
When one of us is acting stupid the other one usually keeps their head.  When one of us is in the dumps the other usually holds the light.  When one of us is overwhelmed the other provides the anchor in the storm.  That is how we wanted this to work, and by the action of grace in our lives, that's how it actually seems to be rolling along.
What I would like to be able to tell myself eighteen years ago is to keep looking at what is right in front of you, take the steps that you can and learn to really pay attention to the person you've promised to share your life with.  The places we go wrong are when we forget or take for granted what the other part of our marriage adds to our collective life.
That life is unpredictable. The challenges we face are rarely the ones we prepare for and the triumphs we have had are not necessarily the ones we thought we were aiming for, but the thing I have come to know is that we are stronger and more capable together than we are as individuals.  Marriage is more than the sum of its parts and that is a huge blessing.
What eighteen represents to me though is certainly not a destination, it is just a start, a launching out into what is next.  We have just gotten the foundation, the high school diploma of a relationship that at least signifies that you are not a disaster.  We can keep a house and raise some kids, we can hold down jobs and start building some sort of security, but most of our life and our marriage stretches out ahead of us down a hopeful road.  We are like those kids at high school graduation who have it all ahead of us, but all things considered, this actually feels even better than that.
Happy Anniversary Michele.