a brass wedding anniversary (21 years)

If you search for ‘‘wedding anniversary” on my blog you’ll find several posts, the first of which was written 10 years ago on our 11th wedding anniversary.  At that time I’d started blogging about being allotment holders, capturing our growing efforts and sharing my love of chutney making.   Blogging was a new hobby and sharing my stories and photos was a big step outside my comfort zone.  Sharing our wedding picture in our steel wedding anniversary post was one of the first times I included a picture of myself (albeit obscured by confetti).

10 years on life has changed so much.  I’m less anxious about sharing photos (they tell half the story for me afterall) and more comfortable with wearing my heart on my sleeve.  Two beautiful boys now feature in much of my storytelling, especially my ”gardening with kids” posts.  I have less time for writing but when I do it’s part snapshot of family life and part therapy.  The last decade has been rich with life experiences that have been joyous and love filled and those that have filled me with sadness and brought me to my knees.  Through it all George has been right there.  On each anniversary I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have found him at 19.  I’ve grown up with him, been broken hearted with him and hope to share a long and happy life with him.

Today George was working all day and will be out this evening so we exchanged cards at breakfast and I shrugged ”Next year our anniversary is on a Friday, we can do something then”.  Last year for our 20th anniversary we’d begun hatching a plan for renewing our vows but sadly my Mum died in August.  Instead our wedding anniversary was the day before her funeral and taken up with the launch of George’s Spaces documentary.  I guess in some respects it’s testimony to how connected we are, through thick and thin, if it doesn’t really matter that occasions aren’t celebrated.  On the other hand I would like it to matter, that we should carve out time for special days precisely because life is hectic.  If we don’t pause to reminisce about life before children it could be all too easy to lose ourselves in our roles as parents and forget that we were beloveds first.  When we miscarried out first baby it was a few days before my birthday so I declared a postponement for a month.  Perhaps I’ll do that for our anniversary too rather than waiting another year!  Fancy a date on October 5th George?

I teared up when George gave me this card this morning.  He’d chosen it last year but had decided not to give it to me so I didn’t feel bad about not having thought to get him one with Mum’s funeral on my mind.  Despite the years we’ve been together and the certainty I have of his love for me I gasped a little as I read ”Loved you Yesterday’‘ as if anticipating ”but not today”.   That wouldn’t be a best selling Hallmark card would it!  What a relief to read ”Love you still, always have, always will”.  

“Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel.  How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody—so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present that you become an almost invisible necessity, like air?” 
― Elizabeth Gilbert, ‘Committed: a skeptic makes peace with marriage’

To read our other wedding anniversary posts:

2009 – a steel wedding anniversary (11 years)

2010 – for George on our 12th anniverary

2013 – in saying Yes to love (15 years wed)

2014 – a silver holloware anniversary (16 years)

2016 – a porcelain wedding anniversary (18 years)

2017 – a bronze wedding anniversary (19 years)

2018 – love never ends: in memory of Mum