This picture was taken on our 3rd Anniversary (December 1) and Of course by now it's mid-January, but it's taken me that long to recover from the holiday season! Our business triples around Thanksgiving and we don't look back until New Years! Justin and I are extremely grateful to do what we do, and the people we have the pleasure of serving with, but I think we both agree that the holidays last just long enough.The week before our anniversary it hadn't even crossed our minds that our anniversary was approaching. Which is humorous to me, because we work around high school/college aged kids that calculate the seconds they've been in a relationship and celebrate reaching month by month milestones. (I could do an entire series of posts dedicated to the nuances of deep southern relationships. They, at times, boggle my mind and it's like a different time here!)
I'm thinking, that because we both forgot, this year was the best anniversary yet! No anticipation, no major plans and no expectations to meet or not meet. I do love that we have the luxury of taking off the entire day together for our anniversary and it doesn't go unappreciated. It's a nice time to get away after Thanksgiving/Black Friday and before school gets out for the holidays. We went where we wanted to go, ate at places we loved and enjoyed stuff that we like to do. It was nice.
I'm reminded of our vows that we took 3 years ago. Do any of you newlyweds ever look up and think "3 years? Really? Feels like 50!" Not in a bad way, but can I get a witness? To recap, our vows are taken from Ruth 1.
16But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.
17"Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may (K)the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me."
I never wrote about or recapped year 2. It was a tough year and our work circumstance and living circumstance left us in a strained place. Thankfully, we were in the strained place together. When you work a stressful job together as a married couple half of the job is figuring out how to separate the two and learning that you always have to work on the art. Year 3 came and we both realized we had a LOT of work on our hands and we set out to get in front of our pain and resentment that our circumstances had caused. We did and now we're perfect. JUST KIDDING! Do y'all ever read blogs and think, "WOW, this person is a good fiction writer, because that can NOT be real life?" I mean really...perfection seeping from every corner of their little space on the web. That's too much for me!
Back to me. Year 3 was a year of settling and a year of peace for Lesli & Justin. It was amazing to me how peaceful and loving our relationship felt the minute our lives were settled. The tension, anxiety and frustration started to fall away. Now, having to go through the process of buying a house with my husband being 5 hours away was less than peaceful, but nothing lasts forever. He returned and we had a new lease on life in our marriage, our business, our town and our new/old cottage.
I still have unsettling moments where I think hideous resentful thoughts like, "I do this ALL for you and WHAT thanks do I get?" It's not pretty and I'm not proud of those thoughts, but I feel it's important that I be honest. After all, I am not a fiction writer and need not try and convince you that I am the perfect sexy wife married to the perfect sexy husband.
I'm happy (albeit begrudgingly) to be reminded that I made a covenant with God that where he'd go I'd go and where he'd stay I would stay. Covenants are a powerful thing and not something I'm willing to mess with. Thankfully, I have the next 60+ years to work on getting this right and I have a partner who is willing and ready to work with me. To put it simply... grateful, settled, peaceful.
PS~ Some of you commented to me on twitter that you had a problem commenting. I just did a test comment and commented as a guest instead of logging into any of the services. I put my name, email and website and it sent me the comment for approval. Sorry, if you've had something to say and couldn't say it. I appreciate you reading and being a friend!
