Our Fifth Wedding Anniversary Was Just Another Day (and I’m Happy About That)
a reflection on the changes a few years have brought
Five years ago I gulped a breakfast I no longer remember and could not taste, while 30 miles away he took his car to be washed so no grime would brush against my white dress.
Today, we staggered showers and sips of coffee, turn-about, while our baby slept and our two-year-old shouted “open presents!”
Five years ago I clutched lace-wrapped rose stems and stepped slowly down a church aisle, while he waited under a tulle-draped arch and tried to swallow his nerves.
Today, I stepped over Thomas trains and wooden track looping and criss-crossing the living room floor with a reused Christmas bag in hand, while he changed a diaper and and cleared a board game out of the way to set a wrapped box on the dining table.
Five years ago we posed for the most expensive photos we’d ever had, giddy with joy and keyed-up energy and facial muscles aching from all the smiles, electric with wonder and sparkling with delight.
Today, we are dressed in uniforms and t-shirts, more drab and soft and muscle-ached and sunburned and even a little grayer, and our hands fit perfectly into each other’s like two pieces of a puzzle.