I'll start with: we are tired!
Boy, we are tired! In the midst of moving out of state, selling our house, changing jobs and everything that comes with it, plus a few other things, we are so tired!
But we are happy! Sure, we have our bad mood periods and some complaining, but I thank God we have been able to hold things through quite ok.
We celebrated the 11th anniversary of our first kiss eating mushroom risotto at home. We planned on having steak too, but we were running late so we decided to pass it. Vicky was already sleeping and the other kids had finished their dinner and they were watching a movie downstairs. Just when we finished cooking our risotto and had the table ready for the two of us, exceptionally - Rebecca and Nico turned off the TV by themselves and came upstairs.
So this is how our anniversary dinner turned out:
I forgot about dessert. After dinner was over I thought about making a chocolate souffle (I recently had seen an easy recipe for it) but that would mean beating egg whites on an electric mixer and possibly waking up Vicky, so no! Dan suggested he would go out to buy us some dessert, I agreed. He asked what I wanted and I replied: good chocolate. We put the older two kids to bed, and there he went, "good chocolate" shopping.
Then we thought about watching a movie on our wonderful downstairs family room (with surrounding sound system and reclining seats - which, unfortunately, we didn't use it too many times), but we looked on the clock and it was 8:30pm. We both said: No way, too late! We are tired!
For sure, life is a tad different than it was at the beginning of our relationship, but that's normal! Fortunately, I don't feel nostalgic anymore. I love that we have three kids (currently)! I love that they are getting older and different and full of personality. I don't always show it with my face (why is so hard for me to keep a smile?) but the truth is that to have a family with children can be challenging most of time and shake your world completely, but I don't regret it for not even a moment.
People get older. We are not teens or not even young adults anymore. I can feel young and immature at times, but I'm 31 yo and Dan is 37. I even have some grey hair. Life is and always should be an evolution. I sure feel much different than I was 5-10 years ago but - overall - I think I've gotten better (except for those still present PMS moments when rationality seems to vanish).
I still have a lot to work on in order to be a better human being. Electronics, for example, can bring the worst of me and make me lazy, impatient, grumpy and an absent mother at times. I'm still naturally selfish and tend to want things my way. I still need to learn to forget more about me and to think of others more. I still don't know how to talk respectfully when something is not right. But my husband and children are, actually, my only earthly motivation to try get better.
It is not easy to live so far from family! We actually wanted to go out yesterday to celebrate just the two of us but we don't even have a babysitter. We get worn out because there no weekends with the extended family here and there. We don't get breaks. Now thinking of it, it's amazing how well we managed it so far.
Dan is still the best partner I could have hoped for myself. He puts up with me. He doesn't take it personally when I'm grumpy. He has a beautiful calming voice, which brings me a sense of security, balance, tenderness and goodness daily. I adore to see him being sweet with our children. I like him more because he is a dad.
So, yeah, our celebration this year felt more like cooking duty, childcare while eating, doing a ton of dishes when all I wanted was to go to bed early, but I'm glad we did it. I truly believe our efforts count more than we know it, on the long run.
Everything in life is a matter of effort. We only respect and give value to what we put effort on. And in order to put effort into something, you have to believe. You have to believe that this is important. That kids are blessings and responsibilities and that to take care of our marriage is of the utmost importance.
The two years and four months we dated each other were full of passion typical of twenty something year old people, tears (we spent almost a year and a half physically apart), long emails, late night webcam sessions (I dreadfully remember the 6h time difference at one point), magnificent self made gifts like those 1,000 tsurus I made you and sent them in the mail or like that entire music CD you recorded for me before you leave to study abroad. I really like your voice, honey!
But I still like our lives better now!
(btw, we need to take more pictures of the two of us! I'm missing one to finish this post! So I'm adding one of my all-time favorite pics of us, which happens to be Christmas time, 2015 - in our home in Kingwood TX)
Love you now and forever!
No comments:
Post a Comment