June 27th, 1998: Silver Spring, MD- Two pretty young kids say I do.
Those wacky kids had great dreams. They laid on a Jamaican beach discussing how in ten years she’d probably have a new 3 stone ring and they’d be back on that very same beach to celebrate with all their friends. In fifteern years they’d live in Annapolis, on the water (instead of Red Bank where the only waterfront is when the driveway floods) and take exotic vacations at least once a year (instead of… never).
I could wax romantic, as I’ve done in years past, about how beautiful my marriage is even in its sometime brutal reality. But I won’t. I’ve done that enough for any blog reader.
Instead, let’s do a little fact checking.
Here’s a recap of what those silly kids thought 15 years would bring:
The Dream: Professional dominance. I’d run a school, he’d run a firm.
The Reality: The only thing I run is a house and not even that well some days. As for The Husband, I’m not even sure what he does anymore so I can’t even answer this question in actuality. What I do know, neither of us are where we thought we’d be.
The Dream: Living in our dream house, on the water where I cook every night in a professional kitchen and we take cocktails on our screened in porch.
The Reality: Our house would probably fit inside the dream porch. My kitchen is 60% functional but I still have to cook every night. There are still cocktails on a porch-though there is no screen.
The Dream: 2 Kids (mine) 4 kids (his) one yellow lab named Gibbs.
The Reality: 3 kids (a nice compromise) a grey cat and a running argument over the mythical future dog’s name.
The Dream: Traveling the world with our kids, teaching them about the world through experience seeing the world. Twice annual “parent vacations” where we reconnect and renew our vows, figuratively and sometimes literally.
The Reality: A whole lot of kid and mom car trips to Maryland and the hope to someday have enough scratch to take our kids to Busch Gardens or Epcot so they can “see the world”. A 15th anniversary vacation to our living room and if the weather holds, the beach we go to every day so we can reconnect with a cold can of Miller Lite.
The Dream: A warm home full of happy healthy kids, good friends, laughter and every day with our best friend.
Reality: When all the dust of 15 years of real life settles, we can see we actually are living the dream.
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This is a perfect post, Christie! I have chills. It’s great to reminisce of the dreams we had and see how they change with the ebb and flow of life yet in the end, you still have all you want and then some 🙂 Congrats on 15 years and all the blessings it’s brought you.
Thank you. It is a good practice to remind myself how lucky I still am.
I love this post. Joe and I always joke about “someday”…”someday” we’re going to do all the things to the house that we want to do, get it exactly as we want it, “someday” we’re going to travel and take the kids to Europe. “Someday” is going to be really fantastic when it arrives…but then we realize that we don’t have it to bad “today”.
Oh we always say we “talk a good house”. I got that from K’s mom. We have grand dreams for someday. You’re right though-the trick is remembering how good it already is today.
Honest and BEAUTIFUL! You already have so much more than those materialistic dreams could ever satisfy! (After over 20 years happily married, we’ve never seen a weekend get away ourselves, nor traveled anywhere by air in our lifetimes, exotic trips are only in magazines that we browse at the grocery store. We’ve never had the latest/greatest/most expensive of anything) BUT we are teaching our kids (as you are too), the value of hard work, respect, appreciation, determination, and acceptance! Congratulations on achieving much more than most families could “ever buy”! And….you can’t be THAT old….yet! 😉 I remember when you arrived!!
Thank you! Yes, all of this is true and we mostly remember it-except those days when thoughts of an exotic vacation becomes intoxicating.:)
great post!!!! SOLID. Happy Anniversary. I have one year on you and, IT ONLY GETS BETTER!
Thanks Shari!
I still can’t get over how young you two were. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous of what you guys have – a true testament to what marriage is – going through the good, the bad and the ugly together. Love you both and of course those three crazy kids