June 25, 1994 was 20 years ago now . . .
Jay looked at these pictures while he was visiting and had to make the comment about how young we look.
Yep. Younger. Thinner. More stupid.
I guess it all balances out.
Somehow I thought things would be different at twenty years. I think I pictured us having life a lot more figured out. Peter would be at a great place in his career, we'd own a nice home and newer cars, and I'd get a big diamond ring to make up for the fact that we weren't able to buy our own when we got married.
Alas, reality.
Here we are and Peter is going to school (again) as we try to figure out what direction he wants to take with his career. We are renting our house and our newest car is over 12 years old. I've lost my desire for a that big diamond ring and instead feel nostalgic about my original one and don't think I'll ever really want to replace it.
Yet we also have these five amazing kids and who knew I'd be almost 40 and still have a two-year-old? I struggle to believe we are getting ready to send off a missionary next month and am starting to freak out just a little about that as Nathaniel's friend Hank left this last week (and I went downstairs as he and Nathaniel were playing video games and hugged him and bawled and made them super uncomfortable and then later when he was gone I realized he wasn't coming in the door without knocking and calling me Mama Mitchell anymore and bawled some more) and then I sat through yet another farewell today. How did this come so fast and how am I going to handle it? How do I have two children dating and why does does my son keep asking hypothetical questions about marriage? So many firsts are coming up-- and awfully soon.
All these years later and our marriage is far from perfect. The same things that annoyed me twenty years ago are still there (with grinding regularity) and I'm sure Peter feels similarly. We are the same, but sort of different too. We work at our marriage and still love each other and we've hung in there through some hard stuff and in the end it doesn't matter about what kind of house we live in or how much money we make (or whether I'm perfectly thin and stunningly beautiful) because what difference will it really make in another twenty years? All that is going to matter is that we are together and moving forward. Or mostly forward. Even sideways is good. (As long as we don't move backwards?)
Actually twenty years is not at all what I thought it would be. When we were married for ten I thought wow, look at us! Then I saw people who had been married twice as long and admired them and thought we'd really be some sort of marital success story when we hit our twentieth. Now most people around us have been married thirty or forty or even fifty and longer and I feel sort of humbled and a little apprehensive about what the future holds for us and a little silly about my naivety and wonder how much I'm still so naive about now.
Anyhow . . . back to our current life.
Somehow I thought things would be different at twenty years. I think I pictured us having life a lot more figured out. Peter would be at a great place in his career, we'd own a nice home and newer cars, and I'd get a big diamond ring to make up for the fact that we weren't able to buy our own when we got married.
Alas, reality.
Here we are and Peter is going to school (again) as we try to figure out what direction he wants to take with his career. We are renting our house and our newest car is over 12 years old. I've lost my desire for a that big diamond ring and instead feel nostalgic about my original one and don't think I'll ever really want to replace it.
Yet we also have these five amazing kids and who knew I'd be almost 40 and still have a two-year-old? I struggle to believe we are getting ready to send off a missionary next month and am starting to freak out just a little about that as Nathaniel's friend Hank left this last week (and I went downstairs as he and Nathaniel were playing video games and hugged him and bawled and made them super uncomfortable and then later when he was gone I realized he wasn't coming in the door without knocking and calling me Mama Mitchell anymore and bawled some more) and then I sat through yet another farewell today. How did this come so fast and how am I going to handle it? How do I have two children dating and why does does my son keep asking hypothetical questions about marriage? So many firsts are coming up-- and awfully soon.
All these years later and our marriage is far from perfect. The same things that annoyed me twenty years ago are still there (with grinding regularity) and I'm sure Peter feels similarly. We are the same, but sort of different too. We work at our marriage and still love each other and we've hung in there through some hard stuff and in the end it doesn't matter about what kind of house we live in or how much money we make (or whether I'm perfectly thin and stunningly beautiful) because what difference will it really make in another twenty years? All that is going to matter is that we are together and moving forward. Or mostly forward. Even sideways is good. (As long as we don't move backwards?)
Actually twenty years is not at all what I thought it would be. When we were married for ten I thought wow, look at us! Then I saw people who had been married twice as long and admired them and thought we'd really be some sort of marital success story when we hit our twentieth. Now most people around us have been married thirty or forty or even fifty and longer and I feel sort of humbled and a little apprehensive about what the future holds for us and a little silly about my naivety and wonder how much I'm still so naive about now.
Anyhow . . . back to our current life.
I forgot the camera so all the pictures were taken with Peter's phone.
Our selfie before we saw "Comedy of Errors."
For the record I'd just like to say Peter only found out this week what the word "selfie" meant. (What?? Are you kidding?) He was actually more than a little proud of himself about that.
Just so you know if I had my choice in that book/movie it would be Colonel Brandon for me. But of course I already made my choice twenty years ago;)
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