August 25th

Today is Rick and I’s 25th wedding anniversary, and our marriage is one of the greatest joys of my life. Even after all these years we still like each other a whole lot and I feel so very fortunate for that.

We met when we were 23 years old, both on the rebound from bad relationships. I was a mess when we met, a major party girl who wasn’t thinking anything other than this guy was really cute and he made me laugh. I often wonder how I made the best and most important decision of my life when I was such an idiot in every other way.

Those first years of marriage weren’t easy. We moved out of the city, bought a house and had a baby all within the first year. All those events are super-high on the list of the most stressful events in a person’s life! Three years later, baby number two arrived and then we moved to California, completely across the country from all our family.

I could wax on about how lucky we are and how great Rick is (and he really is, although that being said he is definitely not without his faults!), but the truth is that we’ve worked at our marriage. We’ve worked at having a healthy relationship and along the way we’ve learned some important lessons.  We learned that we are each other’s most important support system, we learned how to communicate in a rational way about things that are uncomfortable, we learned that we needed to be a couple and not just parents, and that laughter is important.  I don’t mean to imply that we never argue, but we’ve learned to fight in a good way if that makes any sense.

We’ve seen each other through lots of changes. Jobs, moves, illness, evolving interests, and of course parenting. I think the most stressful events in our marriage have all involved parenting issues. And when the worst of those happened, we’ve gone to see a counselor to help us cope and not let it tear our marriage apart.

I’ve come to realize that we are not the same people we were when we got married. Our core values are still the same but our interests have definitely evolved over the years. There are still activities we enjoy doing together but we’ve both developed our own interests. When Rick decided that he wanted to ride horses and jump them over fences in competition, what could I say but “go for it baby,” even though I thought he was crazy?! And when I decided to go hike the Appalachian Trail for three weeks, Rick said, “No way am I going with you, but go for it and what can I do to help?”

We’ve seen ups and downs and through it all we’ve always known that as long as we’ve got each other, we’ll be fine. I know that’s a total cliche, but it’s been true for us. I’m looking forward to the next twenty five years; I can’t wait to see what those years bring.