reflections on the first year

Today, Lynea and I celebrated our one year anniversary.  And to be honest, we didn’t do much that was out of the ordinary.  But somehow, that’s one of the beautiful things that I’ve discovered in our first year of marriage – doing everyday, ordinary things with the person you’re in love with transforms those things into extraordinary things.  We were discussing yesterday what we should do on our anniversary because we’re supposed to do something special.  We both admitted that we had thought about writing a nice letter to each other, and perhaps we will in another week or month or something.  Maybe if we were more of the gift type people, we would have done better at that.  But somehow, it felt like forcing it.  For us, the day-in day-out love that we’ve been able to give and receive has been the most precious gift that we could ever give each other thus far.  It has been a special time for us, and the words we could try to write each other or even that I’m trying right now simply can’t do this year justice.  We’re not poets, just normal people.

Having said that, we did wake up unusually early (5 something) and took a borrowed motorbike to a couple nice spots to watch the sunrise.  It’s been crowded on the mountain as of late, but it was too early for any crowds and we cherished riding through the winding roads alone with the sun beginning to illuminate the sky.  We don’t always get away from school much, and as we sat on the edge of a cliff, we were reminded that we live on a mountain in India.  I don’t think we purposely tried to get away from our friends and family in the U.S., but somehow we ended up about as far as you can get (just ask my parents who came to visit).  In some ways it’s been good – learning to rely on each other, developing our own way of life.  In other regards, we’ve missed the heck out of everyone!  The internet has made it so much easier, but it still isn’t quite the same.

Oh ya, back to the anniversary thing.  We sat on a cliff and I pulled out 150 pictures or so that I had printed up of our first year together.  We looked at them all and reminisced.  Then we came home around 8:00, made breakfast, got back in bed and looked at some of the pictures and slideshows we had made throughout our dating and engaged relationship.  A little while later, Lynea was asleep in the hammock and I would periodically, go outside, look at her and wonder how I got to marry her.

Sometimes it seems like we’ve been married for years, and sometimes it feels like the day before yesterday.  I’m so thankful for our friends and family who have supported us in all of our life endeavors and now support us together.  It means a lot knowing that people all over the place love you and pray for you and smile when they think of you.  We’ve certainly had our fair share of challenges this year – new marriage, new job, new country, new sicknesses.  We’ve had to learn how to say no; how to protect our young relationship.  I’ve learned that I am more selfish than I thought (thanks for giving me the heads up on that one, Doc), and that I need to be home when I say I’m coming home.  But along with that, I’ve also learned a joy that I’ve never known before in living with this girl that I love. 

Lynea’s brother wished us a lifelong honeymoon after we’d just married, and so far, it’s been exactly that.  We have to remind each other almost every week: “We’re married.  We live in India.  We’re teachers.  We’re married!”  It’s almost unreal sometimes.

So today, if I had a glass, I would raise it to my wife – the best wife imaginable for me!  To our marriage – for many more years of joy and mystery and just good ‘ole fun.  And to God – for allowing me to live this life with Lynea, the most precious anniversary gift I could ever ask for.