How Long Will I Love You...

Today on August 19th Blake and I celebrate 8 years of marriage. We got married young. I was barely 19 and he was a strapping 22. Maybe people doubted our union would last, maybe they didn't.  Truthfully at the time I was to twitter- patted to care. I read a blog post recently entitled  "For the ones who married young".  It kind of hit home for me.
  
"This one’s for the completely smitten college kids – the ones who got married at 19 in the church basement. It’s for you who sat on your parents’ couch, hand in hand, while they looked at you, completely panicked. 

For the young lovers – and for the older ones – who figured out marriage is much more beautiful and terrible, simple and complicated than you ever could have imagined. This one’s for you."

I started this post last year so today actually marks 9 years of marriage. We spent our 8th eating takeout in bed. After which I promptly expelled the entire contents of our celebratory dinner in honor of human development....literally.  But it only seems fitting to finish what I started being as it is a post about marriage. 

 I don't really regret much from my wedding, perhaps I might have picked different flowers or colors and I do think I would have chosen a pale pink dress instead of a white one. Sometimes I ask Mr. Robinson for a do over because styles change so quickly and really, I'd just like to try them all.  He laughs and says sure,  if you can explain that one to your friends and family. 

There were some days with-in the last 9 years that I wanted to relive forever and others I feel like we barely survived once. We've done fun things and hard things. Had moments I couldn't stand to be without him and others where I just couldn't take one more minute. We've fought, laughed, travel, learned, prayed and loved but mostly we've grown.  

Before I would agree to marry Mr Robinson and being the good business women I am I struck a deal.  I should have drove a harder bargain. (wink, wink) I said I needed at least 7 years before we could have kids. I wanted to travel, experience the world which would include but not be limited to Europe and the continental US. 

Thinking back  I realize now how completely wrong it could have all gone.  At 19 the world is full of possibilities, the kind you think are without consequence. Our first year of marriage was hard. We spend a lot of time just trying to figure out who we were together.  The problem was we didn't really know who we were apart. 
I've always been particularly gifted with the last word and  though I hate to admit it the dramatics of a burn you to the core and leave you smoldering kind of fight were always my favorite form of victory revenge.  We watched our un-married college friends drift away. They didn't really know how to be there for us anymore. 

I'm pretty sure we threw around the word divorce more than a few times. Then after a particularly bloody battle. I can't remember what it was about, I don't even know how many years we were into our marriage. Mr Robinson said to me, "If you need some time to figure out you, take it, I'll wait."

 I'd like to say that suddenly there was a choir of angles, we embraced and danced and made out like crazy but we didn't.  Officially, we just stopped sucking at being married. Personally we stopped focusing on ourselves and started working on "us". We didn't know a lot of other people our age in the same circumstances so we stopped looking at the glittery unencumbered lives of our friends, stopped comparing ourselves to the rest of the 20-somethings, stopped fantasizing about what might have been and made our own rules. We discovered that our personal fulfillment wasn't bound by our marriage it was magnified. 

We discovered that life was HARD but it was hard for everyone.  Our joy stopped coming from personal victories and more from the ones we fought together. We built a life on a dime scale budget of thrift store couches, broken down cars, road trips, budgeting, burned dinners, mutual consideration and change.

"When you marry young, you’ll change and he’ll change, and in the midst of all of this growth you’ll realize that you can’t change each other. There will be moments and days and seasons that are really hard. And you’ll be tempted to think it’s because you got married young, but really, it’s just because you got married."

This is a very rare appearance of one of our original wedding photos. As you can see Blake had Braces. You bet your bottom dollar I photoshopped them out of every single picture. However I think it illustrates wonderfully how young we really were.

 So today I'm celebrating, we've worked hard at our love. We've fought for it more than once. Our union is a continuous balancing act between working on ourselves and our marriage. I've seen him at his worst and at his best. He's pushed me through my insecurities and I've drug him through trials he didn't want to face. We've grown from awkward married kids to ever changing, reasonably adjusted adults. "Marriage doesn't require a perfect man or a perfect women. It only requires a man and a woman committed to strive together toward perfection.- Dallin H Oakes"

I am committed. I'm committed to this lifetime and to eternity. The one we promised each other on that day 9 years ago as a couple of naive kids. I'm committed "to live every day as if it was the final day of our extraordinary ordinary life- About Time."  How long will I love you...