Thinking back on our vows, it’s easy to let time corrode what you promise to give one another.
It’s easy to get complacent.
It’s easy to let a flame go out.
It takes work to keep things going, through good and bad, and be able to look at your partner and say: I’m still in this, I’m still with you, and we’re going to do this together.
Maybe when we picked “Come Rain or Come Shine” by Ray Charles as our wedding song, those lyrics would become more profound with each passing year.
October 11 will mark nine years since we tied the knot.
Marissa asked me last week, what I recall with the most fondness from our previous year of marriage (from year eight to year nine).
And I remarked that this year seemed like one year in particular where we seemed to be focused on everyone else around us “almost” more than on each other.
This past year was one where the health of family members took priority, where parenting became more of a focal point than a focus on the marriage.
And that may sound like a bad thing, but I don’t think it was.
We (re)built a foundation that allowed us to put our focus on the people who needed it, when they needed it, and knowing our marriage would not only survive but thrive.
It’s also been a year where we’ve had to renew the focus on our own personal health.
I started the year getting updated bloodwork to see how my own health was trending. Fortunately, anything that required attention was an easy fix with some simple diet tweaks and some supplementation. At this point in my life, I don’t need to be on any medication and I’m thankful for that.
Marissa has also been struggling with some health issues as well over the past couple of years, and we’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into trying to get that resolved, too. Unfortunately, she’s had fewer obvious solutions which requires us to go further down the rabbit hole of specializations and tests upon tests, to get the answers that she/we need.
We made a pact a couple of years ago that if we were going to put our money somewhere, it would be in how we feed our family. We can’t afford (physically or financially) to let our health slip out of control if we can help it.
Some illnesses will come up that we have less control over and we have to find the right people to help along the way. That’s the beauty and privilege of a medical system that can work towards answers.
We’ve reached an age where it’s not just about caring for our health, but it’s trying to live the best lives we can for the benefit of Jackson and Sebastian and to help care for and care with our own parents who are inevitably growing closer to an age where they need help we can provide.
If there’s a bit of advice I can give you, based on our lessons learned from this year, it’s to stay up with your bloodwork and the advice of your doctors so that nothing slips past you beyond a point where you can change it. We weren’t meant to live forever but I’ve yet to meet the person who isn’t trying to add quality to their years in this world.
And to my wife, to another year of love, of teamwork and support, of parenting and growing together. It’s been another unique year to a love story that has continued to show resiliency.
Ray said it best: I’m gonna love you, like no one’s loved you, come rain or come shine.
