Ode To Our Anniversary

In a few days, Jacob and I will have been married for four years. FOUR YEARS! But really, that's not very long at all, I guess... it just feels like we have been through a few lifetimes together. And let me tell you, if marriage is still this good after however many lifetimes yet to come for us, then I will be the happiest woman who ever lived.

Of course I use the term "lifetimes" in a figurative sense. It's just hard to describe what we feel together any other way. We often laugh in amazement at the circumstances that brought us together... a serendipitous culmination of events that ultimately resulted in both of us just "knowing." It was as if it had already been written, as if our inner knowings had always been pointing us toward each other. There was never any question, never a shred of doubt, never a need to seek external validation of what we instinctively knew. There was only clarity. There was only love.

In fact, our love for each other was essentially the only foundation our relationship had in the beginning. We were not the couple who knew each other for many years before deciding to marry. We had no idea where the other had come from, the life choices the other had previously made, or what had shaped the other into the present form. We simply came together at the same place and time, recognized the love we had each been seeking, and made a conscious decision to create something beautiful together from that moment forward. Now that I think about it, our marriage truly is an epitome of the idealized philosophy that one marries for love and nothing else. By the time Jacob boldy declared he would marry me on our second date (he would have done so on our first date if he could have convinced himself that it wasn't too crazy a thing to do), that love had set the tone for the days that lay ahead of us.

In the early days that followed our starstruck meeting, we decided-- quite literally-- that our relationship was only going to become more and more beautiful with time. We decided to create something that would only get better each day, a marriage that would continue to radiate the love and joy that we each felt. We decided to see the good in each other, we decided to trust each other. We decided that no matter what we faced in life, nothing would ever tarnish what we knew about each other and about our relationship.

So far, it's worked beautifully. The happiness I feel in this moment far surpasses any happiness I ever imagined possible for myself in a marriage. Instead of gazing longly back at those initial days of courtship and fresh feelings of newness and intrigue, I continually experience an increase of happiness, bliss... even ecstasy, if you will. Just when I think we could not possibly experience anything higher together, I am once again reduced to a state of awe that yes, this really is getting better and more beautiful with each passing day.

The only reason I can conclude for this is that we choose it to be so. We choose each other, we choose the lives we are living, we choose to be happy. I use present tense because that is all there is; the choice we made years ago has no power today unless we consciously choose again for it to be so. This is how we live. With each new day that greets us, we choose that same love that brought us together. It really is that simple. It really is that beautiful.

We probably won't do much for our anniversary this year. It falls on a weeknight, we have to get a babysitter, and I am nine months pregnant. But one thing I have learned to rely on is that no matter the circumstance, when we want to have a fabulous time together, we will. And we celebrate life on a daily basis, without regard for special occasions or significant calendar dates. Anniversary or not, we celebrate. We live, we love, we just are.

And so I suppose that since I can only be the judge of my own happiness, then for all I know I really am the happiest woman who ever lived.