13

It may seem strange that I settle into writing a wedding anniversary post over a month after our actual anniversary, but that is a testament to our lives right now. 
I didn't know if I would get around to this one, but something kept nagging at me to write it.  Just write it.  So I'm writing it.

We were hanging out with some great friends late, late, late one evening(could have been morning) a few weeks ago, and we were talking about our early years.  The Navy years.  Our young selves.  It struck me so hard then that those years feel so foreign.  So far removed from us now.  It was almost like telling them someone else's stories. 
 
Talking about those years reminded me(as if I needed reminding) that we have never really taken the easy road.  We kinda stacked the deck against us from the start.  Married at 19, baby at 20, moved far away from family.  Military life. Another baby 19 months later.  Those years were tough and I don't think that was an accident.  Trial by fire.  Would we make it?  I was a young single mom a lot of the time.  Would I survive it without resentment?  Chad was in a world he thrived in.  But it wasn't easy for us.  Those first years were so groundbreaking and foundation building.  We had many opportunities to choose to turn away from each other or turn towards each other.  Each time we fought the urge to turn away and instead turned in towards each other, I think we put one more brick on that foundation.  We didn't always, but we did more than we didn't and it's made all the difference.

Some of our days now are hard. And some are easy.  But most are a little of both.  I don't always like him and I know he doesn't always like me.  We laugh a lot. We fight some, we make up more.  I cry sometimes, he doesn't.  I fight resentment about some things.  He's good, if I'm good.  We dream.  He works so hard to fill our lives with what we need.  I'm shocked at times how much I need him.  It scares me.  Sometimes I'm shocked at how easily I can get on without him.  That scares me too.

I am absolutely certain that we haven't seen the hardest of life yet.  I don't think we get off that easy.  I don't think God is done with us yet.  I've seen Him refine Chad, refine me and He holds us together.  Sometimes by a thread, but we hold. 
It's been so much more good than bad.  We've got this dreamy life.  Not by grand standards, but by our standards.  Sometimes I forget that. There is so much about this life that rains beauty around us.  It's hard to imagine what else we'll encounter so I won't.  We'll just keep taking it day by day.  Tying that cord a little tighter around us and one of those days I'll turn around and we'll be another decade in and I'll remember us now and how young we were and how "unrefined" and hopefully I'll smile and laugh at how far we've come.