Year One
What have I learned after being married for a year?
My wife and I spent last weekend Christmas shopping. It was wonderful. We listened to Christmas music, held hands when confronted with massive crowds, and found presents for plenty of family and loved ones.
The best part was this is how we celebrated our anniversary. One year married.
We didn’t go to a fancy restaurant. We didn’t have some sort of uber-romantic evening. It was simple, quiet, and perfect. Granted, the crowds were not so quiet, and parking wasn’t so simple, but for us spending uninterrupted hours together made it all perfect.
The first thing we did was head to the iHotel, where we got married and recreated one of our wedding pictures. It made for a well-liked, with lots of comments, Facebook post. Next, we met my wife’s brother and sister for an incredible lunch in downtown Champaign and took a selfie which also made for an awesome Facebook post. Then we were off into an adventure of shopping with seemingly the rest of humanity.
After a year of marriage and being together for even longer, I’ve come to appreciate my wife more and more. She is amazing, and I’m the luckiest guy on the planet to have found her.
Being in this relationship has been the most incredible experience I can think of outside of the birth of my daughter.
If there’s anything I learned from being married is that I have to choose her every day. I choose to focus on the gifts she brings into my life. Her smile, her sense of humor, her patience, her sensuality, her silliness, her comfort, her empathy, her friendship, and, of course, her unconditional love. I may not actively say to myself, “I choose you,” like I’m playing Pokemon or something, but I do choose her with my actions every day. Some days are truly better than others, but every day I choose her. I just do it for all the reasons above and more. Only her.
I choose her with a smile, knowing I’ve made the right choice. I didn’t need a year of marriage to keep in mind how great my wife is, but it’s good to have an occasion to reflect, remember and reminisce about this last year.
Marriage is work, but it’s satisfying work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Happy anniversary to me and to my wife.
To us.
