It was a fourth year Counselling class that enticed us into meeting. A 3 hour Friday afternoon class in the aches and groans of winter, around this time of year actually. There were no connecting busses running from our small University to get me townhouse and in need of a carpool home. You were quite excited to drop me off on your way home, and our conversation was easy, just like it always is in the fairy tales. It was so easy in fact, that we got carried away in it and missed a few turns. As the weeks went on, it wasn't hard to fall in love with you. You were far from being my soul mate, we are opposites in all sorts of ways, and not in the "oh that's so cute, you complete each other" kind of way. The kind of way that we have to be creative and sacrificial sometimes in order to make dates that will be fun for each of us. The kind of way that we've had to both learn that the best and deepest kind of joy actually does come from laying yourself down for the other. Dan, you've done that for me. Right from the start. You wooed me with your lack of a mental map that seems to get you lost in the most familiar places. You wooed me with your hilarious and might I say "dorky" but adorable song "gobble girl". You wooed me with your interpretive dancing, your wardrobe that you'd had since grade 10, and your ability to make me feel like the whole world is always at my finger tips and my dreams really can become realities.
Our "honeymoon phase" ended before we even got to go on a honeymoon, and while we saw the worst parts of the other, you had more grace and selfless enduring love than I could explain. The fairy tale ended but what we exchanged for it in return was way better. Truth. Raw, real truth. You love me honestly, you love me always in the best way you know how, even when I'm really difficult to be around because I can be selfish and grumpy and very very hangry. As days and weeks and months together have turned into years, the ups and the downs, the natural rhythms of life ebb and flow, pulling us apart, and pushing us back together. I've been learning Dan, that the more I love you, the more I love you. The more real and raw that we've been enticed to be, through marriage, through moving, through starting and ending a PhD, through having a child, through loving a lovely child, the less this looks like a fairytale, and the more it looks so much more amazing. I'd chose real over fairy tale any day. One of my favourite things we started doing after we got married, was asking each other every once in awhile, "Do you want to marry me tomorrow? " or simply phrased, "lets get married again tomorrow". It reminds me again and again, that this is a choice. I mean it's not, we've made a covenant, and we are blessed to be married every moment of every day until the day we die. But, I love that each morning, you choose to be married to me, to be married well, to not just drift along, or drift apart. "Today is about the promise of the future and all the great moments of the past, and, indeed this beautiful present where you stand together, surrounded by people who love you and who are praying that your marriage is one of the great ones. It could be you, you know, if you work hard and forgive often and get over yourself and your selfishness over and over again. It could be one of the stories people tell, when they want to believe in love's power and life's richness. It could be one that your children and grandchildren tell each other, praying that someday they'll have a love like yours." Shauna Niequist.
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AuthorI'm a farm girl living in the city, a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother. I love the simple things in life, and love to share them with others. Archives
February 2017
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