I came home yesterday for
lunch. A rare occasion thanks to an all-day meeting built in with an hour
lunch break. Brendan, my husband, just so happened to be working from
home as well.
As I was fixing my lunch in the
kitchen, I made a sarcastic comment to my husband and began to tease him.
He bantered in return and before I knew it I found myself squealing
and running in circles around our kitchen island as he chased closely
behind. His long legs eventually caught up to me, he pulled me
into his arms, (Warning of a PG13 comment coming...Copped a feel), and then
wrapped his hands around my face, pulled me in and kissed me. I smiled
and drew him closer into my arms, not really wanting to let go of him or this
moment.
Before you upchuck, roll your
eyes, and close the computer screen, I need you to hear my next
statement. I did not want to let go of that moment, because the truth is
we needed that moment. It was a rare moment in our reality lately.
A moment that signified hope. A moment that represented healing. A
simple, yet profound moment, reminding me, that we really ARE
going to make it.
Brendan and I are celebrating
our three year wedding anniversary today and boy has it been a journey.
Like all marriages, there have been ups and there have been many downs.
No amount of pre-marital counseling, parental advice, or vast amounts of
"How to have a Great Marriage" literature could have prepared us for
our first three years of marriage. Unfortunately, you just have to learn
from experience.
When you say I do. You’re
diving in...head first...and you just start paddling.
Some days you feel good, you stop
to enjoy the water, play around, and have some fun. It feels more like
your floating and not having to work at all.
Other days you’re briskly treading
water to stay afloat.
While some days you find
yourself drowning. You’re panicking. You’re on your way
down you so you frantically grab on to your partner, not realizing you're
drowning them too!
Sometimes the fight is so strong,
you give up, you begin to let yourself go...and slowly sink.
I have been sinking. We have
been sinking. We have found ourselves battling the "Three Year
Itch." (or maybe it's the seven...or I guess it could be whatever
year it happens).
But I refuse to drown. When I
find myself sinking, reaching the point where my lungs are about to burst
and I can't last a minute longer...I see a light, and I fight my way to
it. Pushing, reaching, doing everything I absolutely can to make it back
to the top. Back to the surface where my husband awaits.
The reasons we drown are
different...yet the same in every marriage. Time, Money, Sex,
Selfishness, Criticism, Complacency...you can continue to fill in the
blanks.
This morning I was looking at our
pictures from our wedding day and I came across a picture of me with tears in
my eyes as I read a letter from Brendan. I remember reading his
words moments before walking down the aisle to say I do...Forever. I too
wrote him a letter.
If only we knew then...what we know
now. Would our words be different? Would our intentions be the
same? Would our reasons for getting married reflect then what they
are today?
These picture sparked an idea.
It challenged me to write another letter to my husband. A new
letter. This time, I have a little experience on my side. It's the
letter I should have wrote to him on the day we began our lives as one. A
letter from the future Mrs. Leaming...three years down the road...
Dear Brendan,
I can't believe this day is
finally here! I have dreamed about my wedding since I was a little
girl. I have planned this day down to every little detail...details
that the guests will never even notice or remember. I have worked so
hard to pay for things, things that I thought we really needed to have in
order to create the "perfect" day, but sadly they will end up
getting thrown in the trash by the end of the night.
We have wonderful pictures that
captured priceless moments, but this day will ultimately end up as a
complete and total blur. We are going to blink and it will all be over,
only remembering snips of the night and questioning if we were really present
at all. (That's why I am going to blame you in the future for convincing
me that we didn't need a videographer).
No more wedding dress, no more
tux, no more flowers, no more wedding cake...all that will be left is us.
When I met you, I gave you my
best...all of the time. But when we finally share our lives together, you
are going to quickly find the faults that I have been so desperately trying to
conceal.
You will soon discover...My
apartment NEVER stayed pristine, I only cleaned it frantically minutes before
you would come pick me up to go on a date.
I have an opinion about pretty
much everything! I will say "I don't care" a lot less once we
tie this knot. And when I ask your opinion, I already have my mind made
up. Your answer will either validate what I've already chosen...or I will
ignore your opposite answer and go with what I had decided all along.
(This will drive you insane...just a heads-up).
Right now it appears that I'm
very independent. I will tell you that I don't need you, but that
couldn't be further from the truth. I do need you. I will need
you. I will need you to tell me you love me...all of the time. I
will need you to encourage me and believe in me when I don't believe in
myself. I will need you to show your affection and love for me even
when it seems I don't want it or push you away.
I will pretend to be put out
when you always touch me...sometimes even annoyed...but the truth is...I love
it...I crave it...when you don't, I will always know something is wrong.
And wait until you see my bank
account and how I spend money...let's just say you and your pal, Dave Ramsey,
will have your work cut out for you! I won't buy into your financial
plan at first. We will fight more about money than anything
else. But I will eventually learn to trust you. I will come
around and finally see that having a budget and being "debt free" is
actually possible and quite beneficial. Repeat after me, "Live like
no one else, so later you can live like no one else!"
You are going to try and give
me the world. You will try to buy my happiness (with the best of
intentions), but it will never work. I will never be content. Every
time you buy something new or do something for me, I will talk about the next
thing. You will buy me a house, and I will walk through giving you a list
of all the things we have to update. You will paint the room, and I will
talk about remodeling the kitchen. You will buy me a shirt, and I will
talk about needing the cute pants that go with them.
This will leave you feeling
inadequate and unappreciated. I never meant for that. I am a
do-er....a future planner...when I look to the next thing, it isn't that I'm
unsatisfied, it's that I have the next task in mind. I walk around life with
a to-do list that I am constantly checking off and moving on to the next
thing. But I will need you to hold me accountable. Please remind me
to learn to be content. Please remind me to learn to live in the
present. I do appreciate you! More than I will ever be able to show
you.
I will get busy. REALLY
busy. I think that I am superwoman...that I can always do it all. I
will try to fill my schedule and our schedules with a million different things
because I will tell myself we (I) can handle it all at once. You
will get frustrated. You like to stay home, relax, and you have been
wired with an innate sense of time management. I was NOT! I'm
the girl that has 5 minutes to leave, will still need to make my lunch, but I
stop to change my shirt three more times.
Which brings me to my next
point… I will always make you late and you will forever be waiting on
me. I'm pretty sure this comes at no surprise.
I will put others before
you...friends, family, work. I will finally realize it when we
aren't connecting. I will get in the bad habit of always giving my
best to everyone else and coming home to give you the leftovers. Sadly, I
will have to learn this the hard way. Don't give up on me. I will
eventually see the value in the downtime we spend together at home. I
will learn how to say No...or at least make a better effort towards
accomplishing this! Aside from God, you are the most important thing in
my life and I want my priorities...my time...my actions...to reflect this.
Today we think that we are so
alike, but hear me when I say...we are NOTHING alike. You say black, I
will say white. You say up, I will say down. We can't let these
differences overwhelm us and cloud our perception of the marriage. These
differences, ARE NOT and WILL NOT be deal breakers, even if some days
it feels like it.
We will have to remind
ourselves that we do in fact align on ALL of the things that really and
truly matter. I will learn to accept who you are and realize that the
very reason we are together is because together...we make one incredible,
unstoppable team.
Today I am so in love with you,
but three years from now, I will love you even more. And I am sure 20 years down the road won't even pale in comparison. Not because we will
have the perfect marriage, but because we will know what it is like to work
really hard at something, to grow in ways we never thought possible, and to
constantly be willing...be willing to say we are sorry...be willing to forgive
even if we don't feel like it...be willing to look past the things that don't
really matter.
I will try to make you my one
source of happiness and will believe that you should fulfill all
of my needs. I will hold you to a higher standard than I hold
myself. It won't be fair. It will create a lot of pressure on
you. Give me some time. I will slowly learn that God is my one and
only true source of happiness and fulfillment.
You will disappoint me, you
will make me cry, you are human and you will fail me. And I have to be ok
with this. I have to forgive anyways and love without conditions. I
have to have realistic expectations of you. I need to let you be who God
wants you to be and not who I want you to be.
I cannot trust my emotions or
my feelings, they are always changing. I will have to act above my
emotions, even when I won't feel like it. Even on the days when I
would rather punch you in the face than to listen to another word that comes
out of your mouth. On those days, when I don't have it in me to
love you the way you need to be loved, I will ask God to fill me with the love
I need for you. The "agape" love. The unconditional love that I can't
and will never have on my own. I want to love you like God loves
you. I want to do what is best for us regardless of how I feel or the
circumstances that we face.
You make me laugh.
You make me smile.
You make me feel supported.
You make me feel wanted.
You challenge me to be a better
person.
You are my one and only.
I will hold tightly to the
commitment we will make.
I will cling to the promise of
our vows.
Today, October 15, 2011, we
have a lot of life ahead of us. And three years later, we still
will.
You are my FOREVER now and will
be my FOREVER...for ALWAYS!
Love,
Your future wife of three years
Kristen
