10 Years Later

I got married a month after my 22nd birthday.  I had just graduated from college, never had a real job.  My husband was my third serious boyfriend and I met him when I was almost 19.  At the time, I felt like most college grads in their early twenties.  I knew everything.  If someone had told me not to get married so young, to take life's changes slowly, that there would be time enough, I would have pitied them.  They might have had problems and obstacles, but that would not happen to me.  I was too smart, too well prepared. I loved too much.  

If I could see that girl now, in some sci-fi back-to-the-future way, I think I would just shake my head and give her a hug.  There was nothing anyone could have said or done to prepare me for life.  I am a dive in and doggie paddle kind of girl.  Teaching kicked my ass.  Parenting is wonderful, but three children in 4 years does not add to anyone's sanity.  I wanted to have all of my children before I turned 30.  I needed to have a masters degree.  We needed to buy houses and cars.  If you try to tell someone in their twenties that all of those things really don't matter, that life is long and days are beautiful, they can't understand.

I remember my wedding day very clearly.  It was hot, and I was happy, but apprehensive.  I couldn't really eat and the limo driver made us late.  I waited outside the church for what seemed like an interminable time before it was my turn to walk down the isle.  I cried repeatedly, during the ceremony, during my vows, during speeches, during the father-daughter dance.  I was both happy and a little sad that my childhood was officially over.  It seems a little strange that 10 years later I feel like adulthood is really beginning.  10 years of limbo… packed full of emotions and milestones.  

When I look at my Facebook page I see hundreds of happy faces, happy families, perfect relationships, perfect children staring back at me.  I look at my own Facebook page and it looks the same.  I don't write about the truly difficult times because I know people don't really want to hear about them.  But that omission makes my Facebook, my photo album, my memories, in some ways, inauthentic.  It gives the impression that if you do things in a certain way that life will be perfect.  I find myself looking at friends who have been married the same length of time, or with children the same age as mine, and wonder what I am doing wrong that I don't look that happy all the time.  Lately, I look at those people who have moved recently and wonder how it is that they are so happy in a new place where they know no one and have to start all over.  But it is all an illusion.  Those people have their own struggles behind closed doors that don't make it on their Facebook page, just like mine stay hidden behind smiles and posts about fabulous weather.  

The truth is I don't know how I have stayed married 10 years, and I don't know if there is a secret formula for staying married 10 years more.  I love my husband and my children, but that is no recipe for success.  I am still trying to figure out who I am, and I really hope that in 10 years I will have a better idea.  I hope that my husband will continue to love me, even when I change.  I hope that my children will be happy and healthy.  I hope that they won't make the same mistakes I did unless they have to.