Five.

Well, we turned five today.

Five years ago, we were hoping the rain would hold off (it rained an hour before the ceremony, delaying it... but then the sun came out). We were saying our vows and nervously standing in front of a crowd of people. We were laughing, dancing, stuffing cake in each other's faces. We were promising things we knew we didn't understand, talking about a life we knew nothing about.

As you say the words "in good health and bad" you don't know if that's going to mean colds or cancer. "For better or for worse" might mean long years of grief, or great happiness and blessing. You don't know if "for richer or poorer" means penthouse or poorhouse. What might "loving and cherishing" look like if something happens to one of you? You don't even know if "as long as we both shall live" will be 75 years or if something will happen to one of you much sooner.

When you get married, or really when you do anything new, it's sort of like signing on to jump out of an airplane. You sign the wavers, make the promises, get in the plane, and then just sort of go for it. I know that's probably a horrible comparison, but my point is that when you get married, you can't predict the future. You know the person you're marrying, know enough about them to decide that it's a good idea, but there's a lot of "leap of faith" involved.

If five years ago I had been given a glimpse of my life today, I think I would be surprised.

We've had four different addresses, have changed time zones three times, have a total of three degrees between us, with two more in the works, have had two cars (both Civics). We've changed in our opinions about TV, about the Church, about education, about grief, about activity. We have friends on every continent, in every US time zone, have church families that we love and miss and wish could maybe all move wherever we go. We have moved to new places together just the two of us three times (Spokane doesn't count), and learned that it is good to have people in our lives more than just the two of us (guess we won't be moving to an isolated cabin in the mountains anytime soon).

We have agreed to disagree about cats, licorice flavored ice cream, toppings on pizza, the idea of playing board games, and which is the correct way to install toilet paper. We have discovered that grocery shopping together is much better than not (accountability), that a walk in the evening is a great way to unwind, that we don't have to go out on "date night", that we can complete projects together without anyone committing murder, that cleaning the house together is more efficient, and that having a day off each week as "our day" is pretty important.

It really does seem that five years is both much longer than it seems while also feeling like we just got married a month ago. We've both changed and grown, and naturally our relationship has too. At just five more years down the road, I'm sure we'll have morphed into different people again, and I can't imagine what 50 years from now will look like. 

Here's to many decades more!