Seventeen Years and a Lifetime Ago

WOW --- Is it December 8th already?

December 8th is a momentous day in our family. On December 8, 1990, I went out on the first date of many with my husband. By December 9th, I was sure he was the guy for me. Now, you might think that a little early to be so sure, but I had been down the road before, I knew what qualities I was looking for in a husband and I had been watching him for a few months before we actually went out on a date, so I was pretty confident. We dated for a year and then on December 8, 1991, he proposed and I said yes and we began our life together. We were at the Biltmore Estate in NC and it was decorated so beautifully, I will never forget it.

In May of 1992, we were married and now, seventeen years later, I am sitting in our home, with our sleeping child tucked warmly in her bed and my mind cannot help but go back to that time in our life. We weren't really young, in fact most of my friends were married and had a child or two by the time I got married, but looking at this picture of us, I am thinking we were really young looking!! We weren't naive about love and life and relationships, we had both been in a serious romance and both had taken time to mend our broken hearts and do some soul searching about our future partners. We knew what love was and that committment was important to us. We thought we were well suited for life as a married couple.

Our life together has not been the easy road these two people thought they were seeing as they gazed into the camera... life has seen fit to deal us both some blows along the way. There are days that we fight just to stay together, fight to keep the seams sewed up and the knot tied. We are human and have learned that marriage is hard, worth every bit of the struggle, but it is hard.

Looking at a picture of our life today, it is not how I envisioned it when I accepted this pretty ring on my finger and started making plans, but it is a blessed life. We are not the same people we were back then at the Biltmore House, we now know each other's flaws and realize that although the hearts and flowers have faded away, we have something we didn't have back then.

We have committment through the good times and the bad, love that overlooks a multitude of sins and a history that lets both of us know that we made the right decision so long ago, on the 8th of December, in the gardens at the Biltmore Estate.

I would say yes all over again...

Living Happily In The Moment
Beverly