A Lot Has Changed And Then Again Not

Nine years.  Yesterday Eric and I have been married nine years.  We’ve been together for 14.  When I think back over that time I think about how much as changed.  We’ve changed.  Yet here we are.  Still getting through it all.

When Eric and I first got married we lived in a trailer.  It was on his grandmother’s property and she graciously lived in it for free, which was awesome.  What wasn’t awesome was the winters when our tiny space heater couldn’t keep up and the temperature sometimes got as low as 45 degrees.  But it’s funny how time changes your perspective.  Now I think about how we bundled up and snuggled on the couch and it’s a good memory.  Not at the time, but now.

There was the time that our old mattress was so jacked up that we would roll into the middle during the night.  We were too broke to buy a new one and spent several weeks sleeping on a mix of couch cushions and blow up mattress on the living room floor.  I don’t know if that’s good memory but it sure has made me appreciate a good mattress.

For a while, we were true rednecks.  We had all our teeth and both were going for graduate degrees, but we did buy a Rottweiler.  A Rottweiler who would get so excited when we came home that she would run laps around our trailer.  It became a game to see how many laps we could get her to run.  When our dryer broke and it sat in the yard for about two weeks we took our redneck-ness to a whole new level.

And here we are 9 years later, so different yet the same.  We still have a Rottweiler, but we have an excellent mattress and working heat and air.  We’ve obtained some degrees and gotten real jobs.  We’ve switched jobs, moved and had children.

We’ve fought.  Sometimes epic fights with yelling and slamming doors.  We’ve stormed out yet always come back.

We have changed.  We’ve grown stronger and calmer.  We’ve learned to fight fairly and love more deeply.  We’ve learned what’s important.  And one of those things if finding the person in life that can laugh with you at a Rottweiler running around a trailer house.

I love you, Eric.  Always have.  Always will.

The night that Eric proposed.