8 Years Married.

We have been married for 8 years.

Yup, 8 years ago tonight we were dancing (me with a sprained ankle) and eating cake!

Yesterday we took off work and kept our childcare...so we had a day together and  we celebrated by going on a 2+ mile hike, using a gift certificate for a nice lunch out, and a just being together.  I like Sean. I really like him, and I know him.  He knows me (gosh does he know me!).

Marriage is a funny thing.  Some days I think, "All couples are a mystery unto themselves...." and other days I think, "Marriage/Partnership is all alike."  In a lot of ways both are true.  I look at some couples and have NO idea what make them tick.  I don't get it.   I look at other couples and I get it...it get their vibe.

The last couple of weeks Sean and I have been processing through a lot of hard stuff.  Personality quirks that rub each other wrong, the looming possiblity of change of sameness (both of which freak us out), the stress of having 3 demanding kids.  We have spent a lot of time talking, trying to listen well, trying not to shut down, trying to communicate our feelings, trying not to hurt one another....and in doing so I am so keenly aware of how hard marriage could be.  In a lot of ways it would be easier for us to just stop talking about EVERYTHING.  And for a lot of couples that works.  But if we were to do that it would explode.  . . or we would take it elsewhere...or maybe worst of all we would develop patterns of coping with life that didn't involve one another.  I can see how we could, if we weren't who we are, slowly become more and more separate until it just didn't work anymore.  That's just us.    I don't know what makes other people tick. I only know what makes us tick.

So yes. Here we are.  Older. Wiser.

My patch of grey hair is fulling moving in.
Sean has changed out his frames for something more bold.
We don't swoon quite as often as we used to but the soil we are in is loomy and fertile in a way it wasn't yet 8 years ago.

Lucky us to have found each other.