One Year Shy of a Decade

Jesse and I celebrated our ninth anniversary...away from each other...again. Ahhhh...the joy of it all. Honestly, we've spent so much time apart (dating and after marriage) that we're just sort of used to it. I think our dating life really geared us up to handle this pretty well...most of the time. Don't get me wrong; we'd rather be together of course, but when we can't, we just can't. I've gotten much better at dealing with this fact over the last six years. At least with regard to my relationship with him. I think having children has made it harder on him because he obviously doesn't want to be away from the kids. (Not that he wants to be away from me...) Having children has also made it difficult on me too because I never thought I'd be a single parent (a discussion to save for another time) and I get a taste of single parenting for months at a time, with the added stress of worrying about him while he's away or trying to keep a handle on everything I can here while he is gone so we can just exhale when it's all over. Before it starts again.

It's a hard thing to explain and I know for sure that I definitely don't have it the hardest out of everyone out there. It just gets hard often. I do feel fortunate...extremely fortunate...that even though Jesse is gone a lot, it affords us the ability to spend quality time together when he is home, with extended vacations during off seasons, long weekends here and there, and of course we value our time together even more because we know how precious it is.

He's my best friend, the father of my children, and he's extremely good at what he does for a living. He provides for us above and beyond what I have ever hoped for, not just in a monetary sense, but in every sense. I can't believe we met twelve and a half years ago and have been married for nine already! For every hard moment, we've enjoyed a hundred easy moments and for that I am grateful.

Jesse had his parents bring up a cake when they came for the weekend. I was going to give half of it away, but managed to eat the whole thing over the course of a week. He also had flowers delivered and chocolate covered strawberries. I did give a portion of those away and shared the rest with Fletcher. (Ummm...he got a card from me.) Happy Anniversary to us!