Wedding anniversaries are bittersweet. We look back at the pictures of joyful abandon. Younger, shinier – our faces full of love driving us toward a future we had just bought into publicly, standing before all those we cared most about in this world. It was one big whomping affirmation that yes, we were in this together now, forever.
A magic day. We felt uplifted. Friends and family literally sang us to the altar. Loved ones shared in the ceremony that made us a family unit as we waited for the children we knew we wanted. We ran on the beach, popped the champagne, danced and sang until dawn.
We said we did.
And we are.
But it’s not easy.
Life gets in the way. In families affected by Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, the pace of life can get so altered that before you know it, the whole rhythm is chaotic, off beat. And even very strong marriages can be tested and stretched beyond recognition.
It’s not because the love dies. It’s not because there are any regrets. It’s not to say that what has grown isn’t more real and more beautiful than what was there before. It’s just unrecognisable from those early heady days of skipping through the sunshine. My sadness is that I wish our children knew those two more optimistic people. I wish I could find ways for them to know the light-heartedness and giggles that were such a part of the birth of this family.
Eighteen years later, here we are. We’re still standing.
But some days are so heavy that all I can do is put my head on a pillow and wait for a new one to come.
Moments can fly so fast and furious that I scream out too (all too often at my husband), when my calm is needed most.
We put out fires.
A sea of paperwork and logistics floods our weeks, leaving only a few weary hours when we should try to find fun but instead we retreat, as we let it all sink in.
Laughter gets muted as we try to avoid highs and lows and just keep things even rather than rocking the boat.
We are constantly trying to calm the seas.
Spices and new flavours fall off the menu. Soggy oven fries rule.
We speak less, play less, joke less, adventure into the world less. We become isolated – not just from all those cheering family and friends who gathered at our wedding but also from each other. That person we ran toward on our wedding day becomes the only solid partner we have in this struggle, the one who is in it, truly in it. So rather than holding them up, we knock at them when we want to yell, when we can’t hold it together any longer. When we need someone to blame. Some very rare couples are able to rise above this. Others fall apart due to the stresses. The rest of us muddle through, taking short cuts based on a whole lot of reserves of good will. It’s messy and disappointing at times. But it’s real. And rarely discussed. (Those people doing this as single parents/carers/supporters have my very deep respect.)
We put on that happy face as we turn toward the world when really all we want is time alone again to reconnect, a babysitter so we can go out to a meal alone for no reason – or at least to celebrate our anniversary. We just want to watch a TV show and snuggle without worrying about wasting time that should be spent reviewing EHCPs or coordinating work schedules with medical appointments, without worrying about the 1,000 home improvements and tasks that should have been done but that we couldn’t get to due to some urgent something that had to be attended to. Without second guessing those moments that we wish we could do over.
We were easier as a couple to be around when all we had were our dreams and our love that we wore on our sleeves. I feel the weight of our family story when I sit with friends on those very rare occasions when we are out. Our tensions are very real and they are not going away. But this is us. It’s not always pretty.
And then one morning you wake up and it’s your anniversary again and you have no plans to celebrate, no cards, no presents because the last several days have been long and hard and there hasn’t been time or you haven’t made time to think about this. Or some combination of the two. A sorry state of affairs for the jet-setting couple that married in a resort town by the beach so you could go there regularly for anniversaries. As if.
You find eighteen years later that like the world-weary Velveteen Rabbit your once shiny marriage is rugged, tattered and perhaps stretching at the seams but it’s still lovely and still loved. It’s not exciting. It’s not wild. It’s tired and worn. And full of “I wish I hadn’t done thats” or “said thats”. It’s neglected and definitely taken for granted.
But it’s there. And that’s not nothing. In fact, it’s a whole lot of something. It’s 6,570 days of ensuring we did not go to bed angry at each other. It’s 157,680 hours of commitment and belief that together we can build this family. It’s 9,460,800 minutes all strung together through some very, very challenging moments proving our faith in each other and in love.
We knew we wanted children and we could not have had two more amazing young souls enter our lives. This is not about regrets. No way. Every step along the way our children have made us proud. They make us better people. This family unit is so much more than we thought it might be all those years ago. Better. Bigger. There’s more meaning in each day than we could have envisioned.
Yes, wedding anniversaries are bittersweet. We look back at those young besotted lovebirds and we want to whisper in their ears, “You have no idea what you are getting into. You have no idea how hard what you are doing will be. Enjoy these moments of frivolity. You have the most important work of your lives coming up. You will be tested in situations you never knew you could handle. You are entering one of the most demanding and sometimes bewildering experiences of your lives. You are absolutely clueless. But you can do it. You will be amazed and proud of what together you can accomplish – shedding expectations and forging a bond that might become unrecognizable to you now but which will be stronger than you can imagine. Go forward, sweet lovers, you are strong enough for the new worlds you will discover together. Just hold on tight. You can’t fix what can’t be fixed but your love, this love, is the foundation on which futures depend. You can do it. You will do it. Together.”
(This post also appeared at FASDLearningWithHope.)