Twenty-Five

This post is actually going up a couple of days earlier than when I would typically post it, but I plan on being busy on that day. So considering that this is the day when I usually post here anyway, it goes up today.

Tuesday marks twenty-five years since The Wild One and I took our wedding vows. It’s a landmark for us, not just because of it being the Silver Anniversary and all, but also because it’s a landmark that none of our immediate family, for one reason or another, were able to reach. Only our grandparents made it this far.

What’s interesting is that when we were going through our obligatory marriage counseling (which was really a joke–a one-hour session with a staff member at the church who didn’t even know us), he actually advised us not to marry. Why? Because we were both “only children,” and we wouldn’t be able to get along.

I’m serious. That happened.

I understood his point. There’s been a stigma attached to “only children” that they tend to be more self-centered, less sociable, less well-adjusted, etc., etc. And while those stigmas have since been disproven, certainly for awhile I believed them about myself. The Wild One and I were madly in love, but we both expressed concerns that our backgrounds might work against us. We were two against the world, with no real role model in either of our lives to look at to see how to make a marriage work.

But the other side of that coin is that as “only children,” I think we understand each other.

I’m not saying it was easy. For a brief period it got really rocky, mostly because of our immaturity, not our background. The marriage almost didn’t last three years. But I remember that during a brief separation, both of us, apart from one another, made a quality decision to stay and make it work. Once that choice was made, we never looked back, and God honored that choice by making up for our weaknesses.

I know a lot of people don’t make this far, and I reserve no judgment. I’m not boastful. I am grateful. It is the grace of God. We’ve been through a lot of hardship and pain in life, like a lot of folks have. No doubt about it. We carry a lot of scars. But my marriage, I can honestly say, has been the one bright spot through all of it–the one thing that has been a safe haven, the ray of hope when everything else was falling apart. Not perfect, but blessed. Even protected.

When hard times come, they can either push relationships apart, or drive them closer together–and a lot of times, it depends on the choices we make in the crisis. I think in our case, we just got in the habit of drawing near to each other in those times (which were many). As a result, we are closer than ever. We are soulmates.

So Happy Anniversary, Wild One. I do not deserve you, but I am grateful to have you. I still cannot believe you chose me. You have made my life fuller and richer than it could ever have been without you. Halfway to 50. I love you.