My Favorite and My Best

Today, Bill and I celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary! Because neither of us were strangers to marriage when we got married, we promised each other that we knew that it was a life-long commitment this time and agreed that mostly happily ever after was what we could expect in our future.

We were married on July 18, 2001 in Florida at a Justice of the Peace and it was the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen.  The lady who married us was so excited to be marrying someone and was as teary as we were by the end.  Really, all I saw was Bill: just locked eyes with him while my heart was screaming WOOHOOO!!!!!!  It was a very good day.

tee hee!  look how young we are!

Within 18 months of meeting each other, we were married, had a baby, moved into a house and Bill started a new job.  Talk about stress!  Additionally, I gained a three year old stepdaughter and she and I took to each other well until we all lived in the same house.  We like to tease her about how she commented that I should “take my stuff and bring it back to my own house” and they like to tease me about how I thought it was perfectly okay to beat a three year old in a foot race. Who knew?  Within three years, we had another baby and another move, this time to a new city AND another job.  It is no wonder those first five years flew by.  We are both hard pressed to remember more than just pieces of it.

Like any couple who have been together for more than a decade, we have seen our ups and downs.  There are times when we love each other much more than we like each other.  Times when I think if he gives me that polite Canadian face with the tight smile and dead eyes one more time when I know he is really so mad he should yell, I will scream.  Times when I am not nearly as funny as I think I am.  And don’t even get me started on 2010 – definitely NOT the year of the McMahons. 

Marriage is work.  It is trying even when you don’t want to, it is being gracious when you would rather be mean and it is remembering all the reasons you fell in love with this person while the daily grind beats you both down.  It is having a partner to shoulder responsibilities, to share in the joy of your children and to make you feel loved even when you are feeling most unlovable.  It is about finding what works for you.  We went to a seminar once about “Love and Respect”; how men need to feel respected and women loved for a marriage to endure.  After ten minutes in, I looked at Bill and said “I respect you”.  He replied “I love you.”  We left and had margaritas instead.  Worked for us!

When I think about our lives together today, I just keep thinking “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5)  Thank you, Bill McMahon, for being patient, for being kind, for being supportive and loving and committed to not only me, but to our family.  Thank you for telling me I am beautiful when I am not, or for supporting me in things that bore you to tears but make me happy.  Thank you for being a great dad.  For loving our children and teaching them table manners, math and leading by example.  You are showing our son how to treat women and our girls how they should expect to be treated by someone who loves them. 

“It always protects, it always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres” (1Corinthians 13:7) Thank you for always making me feel safe.  Not just because you are muscley, but because you never give me a reason to doubt our love and our life together.  Thank you for being the sunny optimist to my cautious realism.  Thank you for trying.  And trying.  And trying some more.

“Love never fails.” (1 Cor 13:8).  Well, of course it can, but we choose every day not to let it.  Thank you Bill McMahon for enduring all the bad, for celebrating all the good and for sticking with me for whatever the future will hold.  I love you and will love you and thank God for you every single day.