FIVE

On our five year anniversary.

This weekend Greg and I celebrated five years of marriage.

FIVE.

I don't know that I've done anything in my life for five years.  High school, college, my mission, even the places I lived after I moved away from my childhood home... none were such a commitment as five years.  Five years feels monumental to me.

I wrote on my instagram post that it feels like by five years we should have a lot more figured out than this.  My uncle, who has been married for more than 30 years, commented, "You never have it all figured out."  Maybe that's the key to a long, healthy marriage- just admitting now that you'll never know it all.

My first year of marriage I LOVED to write posts about marriage on this blog.  I had it all figured out.  I knew the ins and outs of the complicated institution of marriage.  I declared myself a success story and a true victor of all things matrimony.  I wrote advice like "hold hands no doi!" because I was certain I had the true formula for successful marriage and it was so plain and simple. (See here.)

Now, five years in, I feel a lot less confident writing a post on marriage.  "Do whatever works best for you."  "Be kind."  "Try to consider what it's like to be the other person."  "Remember that your marriage doesn't have to look like everybody else's marriage." Those might be the only pieces of advice I have on marriage, and even that isn't really so much advice as just basic how to treat another human.

When I look back on my marriage, though, I am proud of the person it has made me and the things I have learned.  I think Greg would feel the same.  We've learned so much about each other and we've learned so much about us as a unit.  I think that's something I learned this year- that our relationship is as much a breathing, living entity as Greg or me is.  It has needs and wants just as much as an individual person.  And now that we've invited June into our little unit, even moreso.  Our marriage's needs may not be the same as my needs or Greg needs- it needs it own separate caring and taking care of.

When my dad died my mom wanted to put a poem called "embryo" on the funeral program.  She said my dad had always loved it and that it held special significance in their relationship.  I liked it when I read it, but I didn't really get it.  Not yet.

The Embryo

by Carol Lynn Pearson

Love is no eagle
Strong amid
The heights.
It is an egg - 
A fertile,
Fragile
Possibility.
Hold it warm
Within your wing,
Beneath your breast.

Perhaps in heaven
Love can live
Self-nourished,
Free.
But in this world,
Where mountains fall
and east winds blow,
Oh, careful - 
Love is embryo.

Now I think I understand it a little more.  The fragileness of our relationships, of our families...  I am trying to nourish my marriage, my relationship, my family unit.  To hold it warm beneath my wing.  I don't know that I'm doing that well at it, but I think I  least understand the importance of protection and nourishment more than I did.  I  think I know now more than ever what a great gift my marriage is to me.

So here's to protecting my embryo.

And now, some happy pictures... The best of times.

YEAR ZERO (Pre marriage)

Engagement night

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

 YEAR THREE

 The night we found out we were pregnant.

YEAR FOUR

YEAR FIVE