Happy Camping! And Happy Anniversary!

While we were away in Minnesota last week with the Montana family, Josh and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. This is kind of a crazy realization -- five years of marriage. In that time, we've lived in four states and two countries, been students and teachers and worked various jobs, made fantastic friendships, and driven multiple times across the U.S. We've had family drama, work drama, who-am-I drama, illness and loss -- all of which we used to consider exceptional but are beginning to recognize as part of typical human experience.

When we were first married, we were very theoretical about it, very passionate about our values, what we thought marriage was, the necessary painful openness and honesty and best-friendness of it. We would have long conversations with friends about How Marriage Ought to Be. I think one of the things we've learned in five years is to be a little less dogmatic, a little less idealistic. Though we're probably not actually less idealistic now than we were then, not really. Our marriage teaches us to keep looking ahead with joy, because when you're sort of stuck with another rather fabulous person for an indefinite period of time, there's this mysterious ever-developing realm of possibility.

I suppose that's not the most romantic way of expressing how much I've loved being married to Josh for these five years. I have loved it. I have loved falling into routines with him, habits of morning tea and evening conversation, little jokes, deeply held yet still-secret hopes. And as I look into an honestly quite hazy future, I am delighted to discover who he will become, and who we will become together.