Seventeen Years

Seventeen years really isn't that long in the scheme of things.
It's not even half my lifetime thus far. Not two decades. Nowhere close to how long my grandparents were married.
And yet, with each passing year, I'm pleased how our number keeps getting larger.
Tomorrow is our 17th wedding anniversary.
Our marriage has in no way been perfect--are any? But it's been filled with tons of sweet moments, leaning on each other through hard times, learning lessons together, crying and laughing together, and more moves than either of us expected when we started this journey.

It's funny how we can look back on the conversations we used to have about what life might be like after marriage. When compared to reality, those dreams rarely line up with how things truly happened. But that doesn't make our life any less sweet.
With each new stage in life, I'm always amazed how I can still find more things I didn't already know about my husband. And how we have to relearn to love each other as our life fills with children and achieved dreams and business and health issues and other things, too. It's not that we don't love each other just as much if not more than we did when we first decided to get married. It's more that as we've grown up together (because let's be honest--21 and 23 weren't nearly as old as we thought they were when we tied the knot), we've become slightly different people. And that means we get to fall in love all over again.
Through the business of the last few years, it hasn't always been easy to keep the romantic flames alive as much, but tonight, we're going to go on a riverboat cruise in Nashville. Something we've not gotten to do before, but I found a coupon and that always makes outings sweeter. Down the road, as our kids get a bit older, maybe we can find a weekend or something to get away just the two of us. Remember why we fell in love in the first place. Rediscover how nice it is to have a conversation without someone yelling about needing to use the bathroom or complaining about not getting a turn to talk. Kids make life interesting, but they don't always help in the romance department.
Have you discovered ways of keeping the romance alive? How long have you been married? Have you passed the half-a-lifetime mark yet? I'd love to celebrate you, too!​