Happy Anniversary

Dh and I got married four years ago today.

Today feels less like a celebration and more like a moment to breathe. After all, this past year has been the worst year of my life. I mean, fuck all, it has sucked.

A year ago, we were happily expecting a baby from our first planned pregnancy - in fact, I was five weeks along; that baby was already gone. I'd go through the following month feeling off and paranoid, but then finding out on Halloween that my fears weren't groundless.

That was followed by the mess that was the cervical ectopic pregnancy.

And then Gabriel...

Christ, what a fucking awful year.

I will try and focus on the positive - my marriage is as strong, maybe stronger than a year ago. Certainly, I'm not sure things could get much worse in the coming year. Right now, I feel less loving and in partnership and in friendship with my husband than I did on our wedding day or other anniversaries. I feel much more in survival mode, like we've been pinned down together in a bunker and are just clinging to each other, waiting for the shelling to stop. I am grateful for my husband, for the man he is, being better than I could ever have dreamed when I married him four years ago.

We have no big plans to celebrate. The past few years we've taken a trip to the same b&b where we spent our honeymoon. This year, we didn't because we figured we had mounting baby expenses. Instead we have hospital expenses. Sigh. We planned to take off work and at least spend the day together . . . until DH informed me last night that due to the number of people out with the flu, he had to work. We were supposed to go out for dinner, but . . . yeah. I think that's going to be pushed off.

It's funny. Four years ago, I never would have predicted this for our future. I thought what we had already gone through as a couple (the troubles with Dh's family, the depression and his suicide attempt) were pretty bad and I never thought it could ever be worse. I never thought - though I suppose when you are dressed up in your wedding gown, hair and makeup done, clutching flowers and floating down the aisle, that you never think this way - that things could ever be so bad, that life could hurt so much. I never thought about just how important those parts of our vows would end up being.

We are lucky, I suppose. We have each other and we love each other and are holding each other. I doubt many couples could have made it through the year we've just survived. We aren't unscathed, but we are still here, we still love each other and want to be here with each other.

So, whenever it is that we actually do go out to share dinner and toast to us, I think we will be toasting our survival and hoping this next year of our marriage finds us sharing peace and, God willing, some joy.