Marriage: Seven Years Something

You told me the other day, early one morning, as I was washing breakfast dishes and you were getting ready to leave for work: "I'm glad we make such a good team."

And the rest of the day I felt like I was dancing on air--because it's true, and I'm glad for the amazing team we've become over the years.

We're so different. You're strong where I'm not, and I remember everything you forget.

I find everything about you lovable--even your forgetfulness is reliable.

They say people change after marriage, and we definitely have. You've slowly become gentler as you've learned to understand the value of gentleness and the softer emotions. I've become braver, been able to do things that I never thought I'd be tough enough to do, simply because I know you'll be with me every step of the way, and help me when I can't go further.

Our vocabulary has changed because of each other. You taught me phrases that have become family slogans of sorts: "That's normal." or "It was easy."

I have never met anyone else like you, anyone else nearly so prone to making everything sound easy. The normal human is prone to making a day's worth of work sound hard. We want to be praised and admired for our accomplishments, so we maybe exaggerate just a little, stress how many emails we wrote or how many loads of laundry we did or how long it took us to make dinner or how often the baby woke up and needed to eat.

But you're different. For as long as I've known you, everything you've ever done has been "easy" or "normal." I knew you during senior year of nursing school. Every other nursing student I've ever known has talked about what a big deal it is to deal with clinicals and preceptors and exams and the NCLEX. I sat across you while you studied for the exams, and then you were done studying, and then you graduated and passed the NCLEX and started working and paid off your student loans and married me and never even made it seem like you had accomplished anything much.

I was always there when you came home at 8 a.m. after a 12 hour night shift at the hospital, and I'd greet you eagerly at the door and ask you how work was and you'd say "It was easy!" Now you're getting ready to start a new job and I love to see how diligently you're working to gain all the new skills you'll use in your new career.

Whatever job you've had in our marriage, it's been "easy" for you, and I expect that you'll take on your new role with the same grace. You've even offered your opinion that the addition of Cyrus to our family was an "easy" process...though I might be even more mystified than usual by your perception of the early months of this year.

We don't always experience the events of our lives the same way, but we experience them together, and that's what makes all the difference.