reflections on 15 years of togetherness

So much has happened since I last blogged.  I’ve gotten sick, had out-of-town guests, been on seven trips into San Francisco, completely reorganized our house/created a room for Theo, entered the post-pregnancy phase of extreme hair loss (groan) and been back to the lactation consultant (double groan).  All of this in addition to the normal stuff like Diaper Days and fish taco eating.  So much stuff!  I do have a plan to at least post pictures from the last and busiest month of my maternity leave (now I’m just on summer vacation). 

But first, I wanted to remember this day, five years ago when Natan and I got married (it was also a Sunday in 2007!).  I remember so much about our wedding—getting off of the airport tram and saying goodbye to Kristen after doing a week of field work together, the friends trickling in from all over the US, picking flowers from Natan’s mom’s friend’s garden, listening to Rachel rehearse her song with the guitar player (who has since passed away), being disappointed that our outdoor wedding turned into an indoor wedding (but then happy that we’d reserved a backup place), the northwest drizzle while we were all huddled into the gazebo, the mispronunciation of both Natan and Bob Dylan’s names by our officiant... 

Getting married after 10 years of togetherness sometimes seems like a weird thing.  I mean, why bother at that point?  I guess it just seemed like we’d gone through several iterations of our relationship and some parts of it went away, while others stayed.  We apparently weren’t going away from each other anytime soon.  In retrospect, it was simply the making of a more formal pact, in conjunction with our friends and family, that we would continue to figure out how to make the inevitable lifetime of personal changes work within the framework of our relationship.

Our wedding also marked a time when we both changed careers and became teachers, a decision that has caused as much difficulty and pain as unbridled joy.  At this point, I think it was worth it for both of us.  It’s allowed us to have some epic vacations and spend more time with our families.  All we have of value is our free time and we wanted to have more of it.  In the process, we added the element of “same career” to our relationship which can be both wonderful/convenient and frustrating. 

And finally, after being together for 14 years, we decided to have a kid, which will undoubtedly shape the rest of our lives, both as a married couple and as individuals.  Natan thinks it’s already made our relationship and overall lives better, but I am all too aware that that can change as he gets older and more challenging (who doesn’t love an innocent and joyful baby who is unable to speak?).