Okay, so a lot of this content I already wrote before, but rather than try to remember what I already said, and what I didn't, and end up with content I'll want to come back to in future years spread between entries, I decided to just say what I felt like saying in the order I felt like saying it, and not worry about how half of it is redundant.

Josh and I celebrated our first anniversary last week. It was a great year, our best, hands down.

The day of our anniversary, the last Saturday of Spring, we attended the wedding of two friends. We've known him for almost 6 years (he dated my best friend in college for almost 3 years). We've known her for just barely a year, since shortly after the two of them met. Normally I'm not a big fan of such short courtships, but we just had a feeling about them--on our honeymoon I told Josh that I thought they'd be the next of our friends to marry, and I thought they'd marry within a year. Besides that, I knew him well enough to know that he was ready for marriage and had been for quite a while, so I was pretty sure he wasn't about to waste his time with a girl who wasn't "the one." I'd only just met her, but I could tell she was not only ready for marriage, but also something very special, in her own right, and especially so to him. Well, I was right. They had the shortest wedding I have ever attended, at less than 3 hours from the beginning of the ceremony to their departure from the reception, with wedding pictures taken during that time! But it was sweet, and a nice way for us to spend our anniversary. We really liked the readings they chose, one about "becoming real" from the Velveteen Rabbit (which was one of my top choices for our wedding, but not one of Josh's), and another we'd never heard before about marriage being an adventure and a risk... themes which we were too timid to include in our wedding, but appreciated hearing at theirs. There was also mention of marriage coming with new freedom in addition to certain confinements. I never would have though to put it that way, but as soon as I heard it, I knew it was true... in fact, I've known it was true since I stood up at our wedding and said my vows and felt those new freedoms immediately in my heart and voice, I just didn't know how to describe it before. The freedom to just love and be loved without worrying about being blinded, to be rather than choose, to throw caution to the winds and trust with my whole heart... the freedom to see the one I love with my eyes half closed rather than wide open. At least that was my personal interpretation.


The bride and groom--I am so happy for them!

Since we spent the day of our anniversary at the wedding, we set aside other times for the anniversary traditions we wanted to partake of. We decided when we got married that we want to make a big thing out of our anniversaries. We intend for our anniversary traditions to include: gifts, travel, a fancy dinner out, and dressing up in our wedding clothes. And for this, our first anniversary, there was, of course, also cake to eat. We decided to do the cake, gifts, and dressing up on the second to the last Saturday of Spring this year. We had other plans in the evening, so we got up early, read the last section of "The Conscious Bride" (about the First Anniversary) aloud together, dressed up in our finery, ate cake, and exchanged gifts. It was all quite perfect. We both cried a little when we read from "The Conscious Bride". Our clothes still fit. The cake was still yummy (and still too sweet). The gifts were great--I got him an iPod and he got me a star sapphire necklace (the first piece of jewelry he's ever given me) and essential oils for making massage oil. Josh even surprised me first thing in the morning with a rose, as per the instructions in our rose ceremony when we got married--it was even one of the very same roses, as my mother sent us cuttings from the original rose bush that week so we could grow them on our balcony. I had cut off the blooms and brought them inside so that the plants wouldn't waste any energy trying to look nice rather than putting out roots.


Dressed up with our cake top.


Star Sapphire--the first piece of jewelry Josh has ever given me.

Then on Wednesday we took off for Savannah, Georgia, were we stayed in a fancy bed and breakfast for two nights before the wedding. We spent a couple days out on Tybee Island enjoying the beach stuff and the old forts out there, and one day in Savannah enjoying all the great architecture. On Thursday night we went out for our fancy dinner. The food was wonderful, but unfortunately the atmosphere was a little disappointing (too noisy to be intimate). We ended up talking a lot about our dream house, which we are thinking of building someday (ourselves maybe, or hiring someone). Our B&B room had a great bathroom that opened onto the room with double sliding doors, so the bathroom was kind of an extension of the bedroom. Being big open-door people, we really liked this because it meant we didn't have to stop a conversation to go to the bathroom or take a shower. In the keeper's house next to the Tybee Island lighthouse, there was this great little nursery off the master bedroom in one of those little sloping ceiling attics, and we thought that was really enchanting too.


Us on a swing on the beach--we sat and chatted here for an hour or so, it was lovely.


Us dressed up for our fancy dinner at the B&B


The great doors to the bathroom


Attic nursery at the lighthouse keeper's house

I think maybe we also ended up starting another anniversary tradition that we hadn't planned on, when we stopped in at the candle shop in Savannah and decided to buy ourselves a "first anniversary candle"... because we were so enchanted by all their unity candles. Josh says he thinks we should pick out a new candle for each anniversary. We shall see about that. When we got home after our trip on Sunday night, we used our bedside candles to light our "first anniversary candle" together. Absent mindedly, we extinguished our other candles without thinking about it. It's funny because traditionally that's what you do with a unity candle--light one candle from two and put out the original two, to symbolize two individuals becoming one. When we got married, we left our individual candles lit after we lit the unity candle because we felt that we were still two individuals even though we are sharing one life now. We still feel that way, don't get me wrong, but I think perhaps we don't feel it as strongly now as we did then. We feel so much closer now than we ever expected to, than we ever thought possible.


First anniversary candle, with our extinguished bedside candles

On Friday night, we drove out to a hotel near the wedding, stopping along the way at Goodwill where I found an amazing dress for the wedding that matched the star sapphire. This wasn't just any dress--this was my dress--I don't know what a dress that perfect for me was doing at Goodwill, but I'm glad I was able to rescue it. Sadly I didn't get a great picture of the dress as I was the one holding the camera for most of the trip. Josh found himself a dress shirt to match my dress, which was fun--as silly as it is, I enjoy matching, especially when I am wearing blue, since blue is my favorite color to see on Josh. We met up with some of our college friends at the hotel and spent most of Saturday (our actual anniversary) visiting with them or at the wedding (see above). It was really great to see them all again.


Us after the wedding with our cool rental car (they were all out of the cheap cars we'd reserved--so we had to settle for a great deal on this baby)

All in all, it was a great end to a great year. They say that married life wont be sunshine and roses everyday, and they say that the first year is the hardest. I've got to say, I think at least one of those statements isn't correct. It's been a great year, and if all the rest are better, I think "sunshine and roses" will be a pretty good description of the rest of our lives together. One of the big themes at pre-marital counseling was to always remember that we love each other, and always be loving to each other... to hold hands while arguing, and so forth. Along those lines, our officiant asked us to promise that we would always kiss each other goodnight, even if we were angry with each other when we went to bed, even if we were so angry with each other we intended to file for divorce the next day. Constancy in love was never something I understood before we were married--I never saw the point before in expressing love when I didn't feel it. It's a new thing for me to realize that no matter how much we fight, no matter how much I might not feel love in a given moment, that doesn't mean it's gone. In our wedding ceremony, the best man and matron of honor made a circle of rose petals around us, and the officiant said that we were creating a new joint space that we would take with us at the end of the ceremony. This was a concept I had found in a book of wedding ceremony ideas--I thought it was pretty, but I didn't realize just how true it was. We really did make a new space in our hearts, made of faith and full of sunshine and roses, which we occupy together... even through the stormy days when all the other plants are dead. That space, where we always love each other, has truly transformed our relationship into something I never thought possible.

Still, there is a certain sadness at the end of this year. For all this, for all we've grown as a couple and as individuals in the last year, I am more aware than ever that forever just isn't going to be long enough to spend with this remarkable man.



More travel photos: http://pics.livejournal.com/sillygoosegirl/gallery/00034zes
More wedding photos: http://pics.livejournal.com/sillygoosegirl/gallery/00035x7g

xposted: long_term_love