Tuesday, May 26, 2009

2,920 Days Ago...


Karl and I made promises to each other that we could never possibly keep, and we did so in front of all of our friends and family. Promises to love each other without condition; to be constantly selfless; to keep our hearts close despite our circumstances and to hold each other up above everyone else in the world. Crazy stuff like that.

Yesterday I had a whole 45 minutes to myself in the car. A thrill rushed over me as I backed out of the parking lot and started on my trip. I could pick whatever music I wanted to listen to and it wouldn't have to compete with conversation. I looked through our old CD case and found a CD that was not labeled and thought it was something else. I put it in the CD player and waited for the music to start, and as soon as I heard the first note I knew that it was not what I thought - it was our wedding music.

I suddenly felt jerked back through 8 years and remembered exactly how it felt to be anticipating marriage. Sweet hopes and dreams for our future without any sense of apprehension about our life-long choice. All we could think about was what it would be like to wake up next to the other person every morning for the rest of our lives. Nothing else mattered quite as much.

The music that we picked for our wedding was not typical, and I grew more and more proud of our music choices as the CD went on. Typical wedding songs like "Ode to Joy" and "The Wedding March" were bumped aside by songs by Ben Harper and "Pure Imagination" by The Smoking Popes. We weren't (and still aren't) fans of doing things out of obligation or because that's how they've always been done. Yes - I'm bragging - because I think we were two pretty cool kids. I still look at pictures of our wedding and can honestly say that I wouldn't change much about our choices. Of course, I would ditch the tuxes and hire a different photographer (remember this was before there were better photographers) but beyond that - I like what we picked.

For some reason, this year almost NO ONE got the number of years we have been married correctly. Everyone guessed that it had been less time that it was and inevitably the phrase, "You were just babies when you got married!" would follow. I have no problem at all with people saying this, because even we say it. I was barely 21 and Karl was 20. (I bought his beer for him for the first year of our marriage.) We were young, insecure, immature and wouldn't have listened to a soul if they told us to wait until we got older. We reasoned that it was pointless to wait around just for the sake of letting time go by when we knew we wanted to be together, so - we jumped in.

Karl and I have grown up together over the past 8 years and it's impossible to tell what kind of people we would have been without each other. We have had many discussions and lots of doubt about our decision to marry so young, and those close to us know that we have had some pretty nasty growing pains over the course of our marriage. Sure, we had our share of unnecessary struggles because we married so young but I believe that we would have just replaced those same struggles with other ones if we would have become more independent before joining our lives.

As I look back on all of the disadvantages we had going into our married life, I am honestly amazed that we have not only made it this far, but that we feel excited to take on another 8, 16, 32, 64+ years of this bound together life. We have shared disappointments, losses, accomplishments, births, apartments, pregnancies, pets, babies, car accidents, homework assignments, goodbyes, broken cars, inexplicable joys, laughter and a bazillion other things. There is no way I can even imagine a life without Karl in it...and I never want to.


"The closer I'm bound in love to you...the closer I am to free."
- from our 'first dance' song by The Indigo Girls

9 comments:

Sarah Griffin said...

Happy Anniversary and Congratulations on 8 years! I didn't know we shared an Anniversary, as today is our 2nd. :)

skylana said...

i LOVE this.

i also LOVE that karl is wearing glasses in your wedding pictures.

its all too good to be true, and it all makes me miss your faces.

i have seen some of the struggle and i get it.. i really get it and i'm just sooooo excited that you guys have pushed through and i believe you always will.

Josh (the oak) said...

wait, you guys are MARRIED!??!?!?

I though Karl liked dudes.

Andrea Rooks said...

Thank you for sharing your beautiful reflections on the realities of marriage and the beauty of commitment...

skylana said...

oh josh. the best.

Stover Family said...

Karl is a lucky Man Erin to be loved by such an amazing woman. Congratulations on 8 years of hard work and fun times...

meg said...

eight years..you've endured some amazing trials for your years of wedded bliss, much love to you both for the next 64.

xoxo, S said...

It's fun to think about how lovely and personalized your wedding was. Our family is better because Karl is in it and I'm glad you feel the way you do. Congrats on 8years!!! Love you both.

Flo Paris said...

Josh??!!? Geeez.

Anyway, I congratulated you on facebook, but I feel compelled to do so on the blog as well;)

I'll always remember that day, and I'll always remember the first time I met karl in the middle of vineyard drive (literally).

Karl, you make a pretty great best-friend-in-law and I'm glad the last 8 years of my history with Erin has included you!

Love you both!