Ten years ago Andy and I were married in the Boston Public Garden.
How do you encapsulate a decade of marriage in a single sitting?
Moreover, how do you contain two decades of sharing your life with another person?
Overall, the tapestry we have created is a beautiful one. Like any marriage, ours has had its share of peaks and troughs, and these are woven like mistakes into the fabric of our history together. At this point we can appreciate them for helping us make things better. They add texture and nuance and contrast to life. You appreciate happiness and contentment a little more when you’ve had some share of sadness and hurt.
So much of what I am and do and love is due to Andy. So much of our life together has enabled us to weather the difficult times ~ lost loved ones, disappointments, and even the current crazy state of the universe. Whenever the world has gone dark and run amok in terror and strife, we have had the good fortune to close the door and turn to each other, finding comfort and solace in love and companionship. Andy has been that safe haven and home for me. I’m fairly certain he would say the same.
Today we celebrate and honor ten years of married life, and I remember with love and deep fondness the day it all happened…
Awakening first, I pad quietly out of the bedroom into the sitting room of our suite overlooking the Public Garden. The sunlight is streaming into the room. Remnants of an impromptu gathering before the rehearsal dinner stand on a side table as I make my way to the window that looks onto the Garden. Grateful and relived for the sunlight, I breathe in deeply and find myself unexpectedly ensconced in the moment, making an indelible memory and smiling at the luxury of realizing it as it happens.
Andy and I had already been together for ten years, so in some ways marriage seemed like a mere formality, yet on this day, at this moment, there is something sacred in the atmosphere, some shift to something more resonant and powerful. A touchstone moment of commitment and love and promise. It is, I realize, an important day.
Soon, our little wedding party arrives, and we meet up with them in the Public Garden, walking to our chosen spot near several flowering cherry trees. Andy and I are dressed casually in jeans and polo shirts. When all was said and done, it never really mattered to Andy what I wore, and he was just as happily comfortable in jeans as a suit and tie. We would get fancier for dinner. For our wedding ceremony, all I needed was Andy and a bouquet of peonies. (I wasn’t just wearing any pair of jeans either ~ they were the same pair I’d worn when I met him ten years earlier.)
Our friend Chris performed a lovely ceremony ~ simple and sweet and surprisingly moving. After ten years together, you don’t think you’ll be moved, but then it arrives and it’s a little overwhelming in the best possible way, so you let those tears well up a little, and you hug your new husband tightly after the kiss because you’re just so happy to be there with him, to have made it through all those years together, to have such a partner in life and not have to go through it alone.
In the ten years after those first ten years, life has brought what life usually brings – more love, more loss, more tears, more laughter, more happiness, more difficulty, more comfort, more work, more gratitude – more of life, and like all humans, we want more of that. Even the sadness and sorrow, even when we miss the people we’ve lost, even when we occasionally lose ourselves.
In the end we always came back to the life we created together. It’s a life we work on every day, and it’s a life of shared dreams and desires. It’s a home in which we can find refuge when the world turns dark, a place that offers comfort and warmth when the winter rages, and a space where the promise of spring will always be followed by the sun of summer.
And so we add to our tapestry, weaving new rows in different colors and textures, enriching and fortifying what we have while adding nuances and grace and the rich resonance that comes with knowing someone so well, and still being able to learn more about them. I love that we are still growing together, and I love that Andy is the person who has shared his life with me.
Happy Anniversary, Drew. I love you.
