163 days....

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 163 days.  I can't believe it's been nearly 32 years since we officially began our life together.  I remember when you asked me to marry you on a fun evening out for a festive holiday get away to see the lights at Silver Dollar City in December of 1993.  Mike and Amy joined us, and little did I know they were in on the secret and knew what was coming.  You surprised me as you and I had a moment in the wilderness chapel, and you got down on one knee and asked me....it was yeah, a storybook, fairy tale, all the feels kind of moment!  My Ry is really a romantic and an absolute charmer at heart.  I can't imagine it being any other way.  It doesn't feel like it's been over 30 years.  A lot of life has happened since those early days when we'd only been together for about 9-10 months.  I knew I was going to marry you just a month into our relationship.  I knew God gave you to me, and me to you.  163 days til we celebrate another year of us.  I wonder if we'll be one of those sweet little old couples passing the 50 years of marriage marker one day?  I can see us there, I can imagine it and how sweet it will be to see it come to reality.  I can honestly say I'm not the same person I was when I married you Ryan.  In some ways I think I've grown and found a better version of myself as a woman, a wife, a mama, but you know, perhaps in some ways I've still got a ways to go.  It's so hard to resist comparison, looking back on my life and my immediate examples and influences from the women closest to me.  I have admired and appreciated so much the example of my own Mama Nan, how she loved and honored my Dad as her husband and partner all those years.  I learned grace and patience from her and her sweet humor too.  Sometimes the best way to break an intense moment between a husband and wife is humor, and Ryan and I have had a few moments of our own just like that.

163 days to tell you how much more I love you today than I did yesterday, and the day before that, and well you know I could go on and on!  We are in a season of watching our children find their way into their own life journeys.  It's weird that we are down to just one baby bird left in the nest, isn't it?  I remember how I felt with  each of our babies as they became known to us.  What a perfectly miraculous thing God has done with each one!  One baby bird left in our nest, and approaching year 32 marker in our amazing life together.  How is that possible?  Look at what He's done, how it has all unfolded at this moment in our lives!  It's really something, isn't it, my Love?  I am so grateful you chose me, and I chose you.   I am so thankful we have each other and we are in this together no matter what comes.  

163 days til I can look you in the eyes again and say with a billion percent certainty:  I'm yours, forever and for always.  There's nothing I would change about all we have absorbed into the fabric of our marriage.  God allowed every bit of it to happen for a reason:  for us to be fully and truly us.  We wouldn't be us without all of it, every moment we've experienced.  

I can't think of a better way to drop back into my blog this year than you, Ryan Andrew Freeman.  I can't imagine this life without you by my side.  I love you and I can't wait to celebrate us again and again, every moment of every day ahead but especially December 30 when we can count it officially 32 years together!



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