two years of wedded bliss

Today marks two years since Kara and I got married. My, how time does fly by!

This type of occasion calls out for a typical “here are my thoughts on marriage” list, but as I was thinking about it, a whole list’s-worth of advice just didn’t come to mind. That’s not surprising, as it has, after all, only been two years and not two decades.

So instead, I thought I’d just tell a few stories from the past year.

One of my favorite times we spent together was around my birthday; we were out walking around downtown, and having such a nice day out, I didn’t want it to end. We were halfway up the steps to the T at Government Center when Kara asked if I really really wanted to stay out, and I said that I kind of did, since we were having such a fun evening, and that it would be an excellent birthday present to just hang out. So we went down to one of the local bars and pulled up a couple of barstools–she’s not as much a fan of sitting at the bar as I am, but there are few things I enjoy as much as just sitting there, ordering appetizers and doing a little people-watching. She wrote “Happy Birthday” on a bar napkin, which I still have, attached to the fridge with a magnet. We spent a few hours there, catching up on things and watching Wheel of Fortune, and then headed back home when things started to get crowded.

Another story, less fun, was in Venice, when Kara ate some bad shellfish and started to feel quite ill right in St. Mark’s Square–probably a few miles away from our hotel. The disadvantage of getting sick in the middle of a city with no cars is that there’s no fast and easy way to get anywhere, and getting seasick on a water taxi would have just made things worse. Furthermore, it was Halloween, and the streets were crowded with costumed locals and tourists. So we practically jogged through the streets, me navigating by memory and a small map we had purchased earlier, elbowing Italians left and right as we fought our way home. It was one of those rare “got to protect my wife” moments.

There were plenty of other moments throughout the year, like our recent two-person kayaking experience on the Charles which taught us about the value and difficulty of good communication. There was our quick stop by the Pennsylvania-Maryland border in a light rain so we could get a picture of ourselves straddling the Mason-Dixon line. There was our adventure in buying expensive beach chairs, our 22 hours spent in Vermont, having wine on the balcony in the evening, ordering pizza and falling asleep on the couch, our rental fish in Chicago, many discussions about career and general life strategy, our differing opinions about personal finance, working hard, playing hard, and never giving up.

No matter how long you know someone, you always find out new things as time goes on. I think that’s what keeps marriage interesting: growing together, changing, compromising, but always being a team.

I’ll let you know what I discover over the course of year three, and many more to come.