Next week I’ll celebrate eight years of marriage with my husband. The one I prayed for every day since I was in the sixth grade. The one I gave an old shoe box full of letters I had written to him. The one I promised my life.
When our anniversary rolls around each year, I always think about how young and in love we were. I always think how we were so naïve to what marriage really was. How we had no idea what we were stepping into. How we did the whole premarital counseling thing, we thought we understood the weight of our promises, and how we thought we knew one another. Every year I wish someone had told me the things I know now. But then again, these things were a part of our journey.
So this is to you, my newlywed self. With your tan lines and bright eyes, with your unwrapped wedding presents perfectly in their places. Trying to make that new house a home. This is for you.
Dear Newlywed Self,
It might have not been the most talked about in the town, but your wedding was everything you dreamt it would be. Your family, your friends, your colors, your church, your Cinderella dress that your grandma made. But most of all that groom.
He was tall and slender and so handsome, standing hands crossed at the end of the isle. Tears streaming down his face and yours. That moment, of walking between the isles, like the way Abraham made a covenant with God, it was beautiful.
That song you wrote and surprised him with, it was from your heart, and you meant every word. I know it was precious to him. But that kiss, that first kiss, the one you waited on. It was holy.
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