5 Years Together

Tomorrow marks the day that we celebrate our 10^th anniversary.  I’m posting this a day early because we all know that tomorrow is now about someone else and our anniversary became null and void when Ryker came into our lives on the same date! No the 5 year title of this post wasn’t a typo.  With Seth gone 6 months a year, give or take a few, we really only spend half the year together.  He thinks it’s dumb when I say that, but reminding myself of that fact, honestly makes me more thankful for the time we do have together.  I have been asked numerous times if it is harder than I thought it would be being married to a commercial fisherman, if it is harder now that we have kids, if I get sick of having to do all the household and yard chores while he’s gone, yada, yada, yada….  All those questions can be answered with one simple answer:  I wouldn’t have it any other way and I would choose being married to Seth all over again even if I only saw him one day a year.  He’s the man I was meant to marry and I live a pretty great life. 

I remember when he asked me to marry him, I was 25 and pretty shocked by the out of the blue proposal.   I remember thinking I was too young to be married, but knew I was going to be with him forever so what was the hold up?  We didn’t have to have kids right away (which I now wonder what  the heck I was really waiting for there too).  We had never talked about marriage, we had never looked at a single ring, he had never asked what kind of rings I liked and I had basically no jewelry for him to look at to get a feel for my taste.  Also, everyone that knew me, knows I didn’t even ask to look at my engaged friends rings back then so he couldn’t even ask them for help if he had wanted to.  Yet, there he was, with the perfect ring.  Actually, more than perfect, he had it made into the only piece of jewelry that is totally me, right down to the story of how it came to be.  I’m the type of person that doesn’t want to be sent flowers from a florist.  I don’t want anyone paying that price and I don’t really enjoy the commercial look of them.  If you are going to give me flowers, they better be picked off the side of the road or bought from the little old lady with the giant garden and roadside stand that would like the mason jar she put them in returned if you happen to be in her neck of the woods again.  I like simple and unique.  Maybe the fact that I never imagined any wedding as a little girl made it perfect too.  A ring never crossed my mind, nor a dress, nor a location……yet as I walked down that  Las Vegas aisle, with the least expensive wedding package possible at a destination chosen by chance from Seth’s viewing  of the Travel Channel one day, in front of 70 or so of our closest friends and family, everything was perfect.  Smartest decision I ever made.  We had no idea where life would take us, no idea what the future held, but we were sure of one thing…..each other.  Today, when I look back on it after 10 years, smart doesn’t even cover it…..we were genius.

 

Now to the groom himself.  Anyone that knows Seth, knows what a great person he is, but no one has even begun to see the depths of his awesomeness like I have.  Seeing him as a dad, building a house together, doing much of the work ourselves, watching him through the boat building and skiff building process, growing into numerous fisheries, transitioning to a one income family...I have more admiration for him now than I did when I first fell in love with him.  He digs in like no one else I know and just gets shit done, no matter what it takes.  He has all the qualities I hope my kids will one day have.  He’s kind hearted, compassionate, has more will power than anyone I know, and is so, so smart (but that’s obvious, I mean, he chose to marry me).  Happy Anniversary!