Now Go Fall in Love

Dear Karl,

As our anniversary approached, I was planning to write an awesome, inspiring post about the two of us & our love story. Something along the lines of the post about the anniversary of our engagement.

But, I’ve been stuck. Uninspired. (Not about our marriage - just about writing the “right” words that expressed everything perfectly).

I logged into eHarmony last night because I had thought about including excerpts from our first emails. It was fun reading through our profiles together - the first glimpses that we had into each of our lives - but I realized that it wasn’t right for this post.

Then today after we walked around the house with a potential painter I knew what to write.

I want to write about what marriage really is - for us.

The reality of marriage was today. 

I think Pastor Dick said something along these lines at our wedding - the marriage starts as soon as the wedding ends. Marriage isn’t the wedding; the tuxes, the wedding dress, the professionally curled hair - that’s the wedding. Like a profile picture on eHarmony or the eloquent, romantic emails that we wrote to one another. That’s all wedding. Our “best.” 

Marriage? It’s
falling in love.

choosing paint colors and tile & making decisions on which company we trust to do the work.

waking up with a 3 year old between us.

always forgetting to take pictures of the two of us together.

finishing each other’s sentences.

planning a kitchen remodel and installation and all of the steps in between.

living off of savings and one low-paying part time job for a better part of a year.

sharing our home with my parents for a month when I was pregnant with Mr. C.

taking a 12-week birthing class together.

buying our first car together and road tripping (twice) to Minnesota.

praying in our entryway when we went into labor for Miss S four weeks early and didn’t know how things would evolve over the next 24 hours.

being gentle with one another with our idiosyncrasies/habits/frustrating tendencies.

not giving in to a timeshare company on our honeymoon (that may sound silly, but it was a lot of fun being a united front together when the sale’s person was so used to people giving in).

running late together.

making me coffee every morning before I work.

driving to pick up a prescription before the pharmacy closes when I work late.

listening to my worry about the projects we still need to accomplish and how each item on our remodeling to do list seems to take so much longer than we expected.

driving to Minnesota with a one-month old to help your mom recuperate after hip surgery (and I’d do it all over again without hesitation).

While we’ve had some trials in our marriage (don’t all couples?), we’ve had a pretty smooth life together as Mr. and Mrs. The unemployment x2 was hard, but we got through it. We haven’t had to survive some nightmares that other couples have endured…when we face trials, I pray that our foundation is thick & we’ll buoy each other for the next 50+ years. 

I don’t say it as often as I once did (when we would text one another “I love you!” at least once a day), and it isn’t as polished as when we first emailed, but I love you.

All my love,

Kristin