5 years!

I am amazed at myself.

5 years of marriage. And we were only too happy to project more of our lives together and plan anniversary visits to national parks in the future.

This is pretty amazing.

It is a big accomplishment in modern society, but what makes this truly astounding is the fact that I NEVER thought I would make it to this milestone. I could imagine it, I hope and worked for it certainly, but I didn't realistically expect myself to reach it.

My mom and father divorced. I am a formed by that.

My grandparents divorced. I am influenced by that.

On both sides of my family, divorce is a heartbreaking reality that has happened often enough that while the initial announcement may punch you in the lungs and tear at your central chest organ, it doesn't rock the foundation of your world.

I've had friends I've watched get married who have now gotten/ are now getting divorced. It's shocked my system and part of that is because I always thought I would be the statistic, not them. I thought I would prove to be emotionally fickle, inconstant or just plain ill-suited to marriage.

In high school, I was the crazy one who transferred to a different school 'cause I was having emotional breakdowns. Crazy in high school and kinda crazy in college gave me the expectation that I would always be falling short, always be lacking some necessary quality. I needed to go to therapists from the time I was in 5th grade.

Surprisingly, all that talking through my formative years helped me establish who I was, what I needed and how to communicate reasonably well. Expecting to find myself lacking, I find myself much, much stronger than I thought and part of that is because of who I married.

I wasn't confident I could help make the marriage last forever... he is confident and his confidence has inspired me.