Looking Back and Ahead...10 years

10 years ago today I was young, too young to legally drink, and yet I took the biggest adult decision of my life. It precedes any other huge decision, even having children, as this decision precluded who I would spend the rest of my life with and have children with. 10 years ago I married my sweet, wonderful, quiet, intelligent, sarcastic, peaceful, gorgeous, kind, thoughtful husband.

I'm still in awe, even this late at night, and probably will be so for awhile, that we have come to such a huge milestone in our lives. 10 years seems both forever and so fast. Together, we have watched friends fall in love, marry, and divorce. We have watched family members have children, then leave their spouses. Sometimes there is no choice for our friends and families. Sometimes we have wondered how they could leave so easily. We've reflected often, over the years, how our own parents could make such a weighty decision only to dash the promises and their entire families lives (our own included) to pieces for something else.

Both of our parents divorced and both divorces were nasty. Finding each other as young as we did, I know that our previous life dramas forth coming from our own parents decisions played a huge role in how we wanted our lives to be. Marriage was a huge issue for us both. Marriage, we decided, would never be taken lightly, and would end only when one of us passed away. And before we even got to that point, as young as we were, it was discussed, and hashed over, and talked about over and over until we were both so sure.... and here we are today.

5 years ago I remember us not having enough money for a huge celebration on our anniversary and so we decided our 10 year we would do something extravagant, out of the ordinary, magical. We decided we would take a weekend and fly to Europe, just the two of us. It was something we talked about, fantasized over for years, always brought up again and promised each passing anniversary.

Then we found out we were expecting our third child and he would only be 2 months old when our anniversary came. There was just no way we could have afforded the time or ability to go. I remember feeling crushed that our fantasy would not come to fruition. j kept promising me it would happen one year. I believe him and know it will, just not when we planned, But then again, isnt that what life is about?

So today we celebrated by going to our oldest childs parent teacher conference. (Xavier is doing fantastically btw). And then I spent the rest of the day playing taxi, dropping J off back home so he could work, picking up Xavier from a drop in day care, going to get our car ready for our trip back home, getting Ashe from preschool, then heading to the library to pick up books for the trip...

J and I had been joking for months on what the 10 year gift was supposed to be made of. Neither of us had bothered to look it up (all of our extra finances are being put toward our trip home to see friends and family) but we settled on tinfoil. Tinfoil was the 10 year gift. So tonight, after dinner, I presented to him a tinfoil rose I had made, both as a joke and promise.

And I realized this evening I never once thought of our fantastical trip to Europe. Instead I cherished the day as a Mom, and wife, holding my youngest as he slept in my arms before J took him so I could have a break, and realized if we had done as planned, I wouldnt have this third child to love and adore. I wouldn't have these moments of looking into the most beautiful eyes of a tiny person my husband and I created our of an act of love. That was a better gift than eating in a cafe in the streets of Paris or in a Pub in London.

J and I finished off the evening by watching a movie, popping on to our computers (as we always do before bed) and now we shall go to sleep, exhausted, quiet so as not to wake up Soren, and fall asleep cuddled into one anothers arms, as we have done every night for over 10 years.

And I love it. I love him more and more each day. 10 years went by oh so fast. I hope the next 10 slow down so we can cherish them even more.