3 Years Ago today

Marriage is like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich… the husband and wife are the peanut butter and jelly. They’re much better together than apart. God is the bread who holds it all together. When it’s done right, it’s a simple recipe that never goes out of style
                                                                                           ~Author unknown

Marriage is hard.  It’s easy, but it’s hard.  Don’t get me wrong, sooooo totally worth it, but hard and easy, but hard.

Are you confused yet?  Don’t worry, I think I am too.  Marriage is easy if you are with the right person, to work through and push on through all of your differences, all the obstacles, all the disagreements, all the everything that life is willing to throw at you.

Three Years ago today I chose to enter into this marriage.  At 10:15am my husband asked me to be his wife.  Be his wife for the rest of our lives.  Be his wife through the good times and the bad.  But most importantly, to be his wife.

When you start dating a person, you put your best foot forward.  You go out of your way to impress.  I’m not really sure you know a person until you’ve been together for a while.

We had the advantage of being friends in high school, although a lot had changed from high school until we met back up 10 years later.  Life happened.  Education happened.  Families happened.  Hardships happened.  Joyous times happened.  Heartache happened.  Jobs happened.  Enough happened to those 2 people that they had been completely reshaped, reformed and molded into the people they were on July 25, 2009, when they met up again after 10 years for their first date.  It was almost like meeting a stranger for a first date, a date that no one could have imagined would lead to a lifetime together.

My husband tells me that the night, of that first date, he knew that he was going to marry me; I however didn’t know anything of the sort.  All I knew is I went on a first date for the first time in a little over 5 1/2 years and had a fabulous time with a stranger from my past.  Who would have known that that first kiss at 3am would be my last first kiss?

As the summer drew on and I sometimes think life sped up, we became closer talking through all means possible.  In fact, we had a long distance relationship for the first 2 months of our relationship.  In October of that year (2009) when he informed me he was quitting his job and moving home, I actually got a sick feeling in my stomach.

We had talked a few times about marriage and life together but nothing was ever set in stone.  Nothing was ever serious even.  It was just talk, like we always did.  One thing I told him though, I didn’t want to ever be proposed to on my birthday, anything to do with Christmas or New Years, Valentine’s Day, basically any of the “given” times.  Turns out, I share my proposal date with National Safety Pup Awareness Day :).

I hear some many times that people are getting married but are unsure if they’re making the right decision.  If you have doubts, DON’T DO IT!  That’s one piece of advice I have for you!  When it’s right, you’ll definitely know and there will be no doubts in your mind.

So, now is time to share the story that I have shared, every year on this day:

This had started out as a pretty crappy day, I surely didn’t know that it would eventually get better! I started doing the mail and got a phone call from Nancy at the front office that I had flowers at the front desk so I headed to the front of the building to go retrieve my flowers. (I work all the way at the back.) I passed Becky grumbling that “Prince Charming’s so in trouble.” although seriously what girl doesn’t like flowers, especially when they look like this!!

So when I came back Becky announces really loud that I had beautiful flowers. My desk has frosted glass around it and when I walked around the corner and I could see someone on the far side of my desk but I figured it was a coworker had dropped something or since I was having such a bad day, they were going to jump out and scare me (things like that happen to me from time to time) so I didn’t really think to much of it. So I came up on my mystery guest and Prince Charming is down on one knee.

I just stared at him and he asked me “The Question” and I was rendered speechless. (yes I know, this doesn’t hardly happen at all!)

I just stared at him and it dawned on me, SPEAK Nicole :)… so of course I said yes. He said he had to pry my death grip off the rose container to set them down on my desk for me; He said he thought I’d drop the flowers and he was prepared to catch them… LOL

Then he turned around and I tackled him in a bear hug.

One final note:

Over time your marriage will start to look like the marriages of the people you’re around the most, so be very wise about how you choose your friends.  Look for at least one couple who has a marriage worth imitating and then be intentional about spending more time around them.