Twenty Years

This week, Kevin and I celebrate our twentieth anniversary. Anniversaries are truly something to be celebrated, much more so than birthdays, I think. Getting older just happens. It requires no act of your will, no compromise, no selflessness. I'm all for parties and cake, but really, when you pass another birthday, you've just managed to stay alive another year, and for most of us, that's not a huge accomplishment. But when you pass another year of living side by side with another person day in and day out--well, that's a feat worth celebrating. It deserves a steak and a margarita at the very least.

The amazing thing to me about marriage is that we sign up for it as mere babies. It's arguably the most important decision of our lives, and we make it as crazy, carefree kids. It's a miracle, God's grace, that any of us make it to ten years, let alone twenty or fifty. Who has any idea who they are at 20 or 25 years old, let alone what life is going to hurl at them?

As I stood up in front of that room full of people on August 26, 1995, all I can remember thinking about was that my dress was itchy and I hoped my stomach wouldn't growl. I might have imagined this man before me was the one with whom I would bring children into the world, but I didn't picture myself splayed out on a table, naked and big as a barn as that happened. The idea of playing house was fun, but did I think through what it would really look like to share a bed, a bathroom, a t-shirt, a bank account, a schedule, and on occasion a toothbrush with this person? Every day? Did I know that he would be seeing me,  repeatedly, at my very worst, like crouched over the toilet with vomit in my hair, blubbering incoherently over the loss of a grandparent/baby/dog/job/sense of identity, or simply with greasy hair or an unsightly rash? That he was the person who would be confined with me in a vehicle when I maybe shouldn't have eaten that second burrito? Did I realize this was the person  who would hear my ugliest thoughts, things you can only say in a dark room at a late hour?

Did anyone think of these things at 22 or 24? Did anyone think about all the enemies of marriage, everything from demanding careers and wailing babies to separate TVs and Ashley Madison? (Apparently I've been living under a nice, sweet rock, because I had never heard of Ashley Madison until a week ago. "Life is short. Have an affair." Really? Satan doesn't even attempt to be subtle with his lies anymore.) Did we know how innately selfish we are and how hard it would be to live in perpetual compromise with another person? How un-fun a lot of the days would be, and how giddy love eventually wears off, leaving you clinging to deep respect and stubborn commitment?

Nope. I didn't know any of this. And it's just as well. I just knew there was a good, intelligent, gorgeous guy with an easy last name who wanted to spend every day with me. I was in. I'm still in, now more than ever. There's no one else I'd want to spend my worst days with, or my best days. He's got my back, and I've got his. Neither of us is checking out, no matter what we say or do or look like. That's what marriage, beautiful marriage, looks like after twenty years.

"Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. ... Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. ... But of course ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense--love as distinct from being 'in love'--is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit, reinforced (in Christian marriage) by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. ...'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity; this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it." --C.S. Lewis