Making it count: an anniversary story

It’s our anniversary again, the one that everyone counts- the day we stood in front of our friends and family and signed our names to a document and threw a party.

And while I admire this day as the marker it is in our lives, I’m not as quick to recall how many years it has been. I revert back to our original anniversary that paints the full picture of our 25 years of history.

Because 25 years? That sounds like a loooong time. Honestly, I’m not sure how that is even possible. I certainly don’t feel old enough to have been sharing adulthood with another person for 25 years!

More and more I hear myself using the phrase-

“It feels like only yesterday…”

Of all the adventures we have tackled together, a more notable one surfaced as an anniversary just last month. After a 2-year renovation to our little farmhouse to make more bedrooms, we were ready to become licensed Foster Parents at the beginning of 2020. Of course COVID quickly delayed those plans.

When we received our sibling group placement in October of that year we were thrown into a world of home schooling and quarantines, the kind of stuff that you couldn’t have prepared for because our generation hadn’t witnessed a world like it before. As with most challenges, they force you to get tougher, more creative. At that point we had a 20 year history of being a couple and even though we didn’t know how this fit into being parents we did what we had always done- we just “figured it out”… together.

(Heck- we’re still doing that! Aren’t all parents, really!?!)

Some of the kiddos were older, closer to “aging out of the system” as they say. So we decided that it was important to us to give them some memories together as siblings. We planned modest trips, long weekends mostly. We took them to St. Louis (Missouri), Savannah (Georgia) and Estes Park (Colorado). We planned trips we would have taken ourselves, together as a couple. We liked the idea of travel opening up their interests and giving them experiences they might not have otherwise had.

Because of their ages I assumed our time with them was fleeting and we would be a mere blip in their lives when they looked back. Which is why it surprises me that they still make the time for us. Holidays, car shows, impromptu week night dinners, birthdays…

And also why we recently decided to make the time for them.

We took them all on another little trip last month- just a long weekend, a fall adventure. We drove four hours north on a Thursday night to a town in Michigan, where we crashed at a VRBO, watched a little Sam and Colby and went to bed ready to tackle a day of exploring in the morning.

There was no expectations. They trusted us to make it fun. The weather was perfect and the fall color was peak. Between photo opps at waterfalls and exploring old towns, we enjoyed the conversations. They varied from recalling highlights of our past trips to discussing relationships and even seeking our advice. In all of our years of wondering if we were doing the whole parenting thing “right” we didn’t realize the most important part was just sharing with them who we really are. We’ve modeled a healthy, loving and lasting marriage.

And this resonates with them.

After all, we’ve really only been parents for five years.

We’ve been ourselves for…always.

At one point, after a long day of hiking, they all fell asleep in the back of the car like little kids. We decided not to wake them when we got to the beach site of a local haunted story. Instead, we got out and walked the shoreline together, just me and Nick, like we would have if we had planned the trip for only ourselves.

We reflected on how the whole weekend was full of moments like this one- which left us feeling both young and old at the same time.

Young in the sense that we still had the energy to hike until the sun set, just like our 20-something year old selves would have.

But old in the sense that we have grown-up children that want to hang out with us- not because we’re young and cool- but because we’re steady and dependable. A piece of a home to them.

We’re young enough to remember what it felt like to be creating the memories we now look back on and old enough to know what a gift that is. Old enough to know that time moves too fast.

That five years can change the entire course of your life.

It certainly changed ours.

In a month of celebrating anniversaries and counting the years, there is something worth counting instead-

Your blessings.

For the past 25 years and the future 25 and beyond-

(and this is for you, Nick-)

Thank you.