Twelve and a half

Today is our 12½ year wedding anniversary, and having learned that it is Dutch tradition to celebrate such a milestone, we decided to do exactly that: a good excuse for a party to brighten up a dull January day and to bring together some of those who have been with us on the journey...

And what a journey! It hasn't always been perfect or easy; but on the whole, there is very little about the last twelve and a half years I would change.

It's been an amazing adventure and we've had a whole lot of fun along the way! I am very grateful for all the places we've discovered, people we have come to call friends, and experiences that have shaped who we have become. Above all, I am grateful to be able to share my life with someone whose outlook on the world fits so seamlessly with mine; who I know I can trust implicitly; and with whom so much more has been possible than I probably would ever have lived without him.*

It seems that, whenever we celebrate a birthday, anniversary or the like, talk turns to whether it feels as long as it has been ... in reality, though, I wonder how we can ever imagine we can describe what the passage of time feels like, or how we think we might get the measure of it. Because in reality, it slips through our fingers like shifting sands, but also clings to us like those grains between your toes that never seem to quite wash away. So these last 12½ years? Well, it both feels like no time at all, and an entire lifetime. I have plenty of memories of a wedding that doesn't feel so very long ago, but enough memories in the meantime to think those 12½ have been filled to the brim. I can see, in myself, both something that still exists of the 23-year-old me and plenty that has changed, grown and deepened in the meantime.

Perhaps what the last years feel like matters less than knowing that the journey continues. There is so much more of life still to be lived! Here's to the next twelve and a half, and beyond.


*Soppy, romantic stuff over. Normal service will be resumed in the next post!