Leaning...

We've been together for 18yrs, married for 13. Yes, when we first met, we were kids. At 17, we gushed over the movie "Ghost" and made Unchained Melody 'our song'. We were inseparable from our first date onward. He was on the basketball team, I the caption of the cheerleading squad (cliche, I know...but true). We fit the stereotypical American persona of young love. Then (as it usually happens I guess) life was thrown into fast forward. Before we knew it we graduated high school, Brian did 4 years of college, we got married, had 3 children, and were living abroad. And as the children grow...life seems to get even faster by the second.

But in the course of this time together, we have leaned on each other. While being abroad without our parents and siblings...we leaned on each other. And now that we've been back nearly 1 1/2 years we find we are still daily trying to morph back into our home country...still leaning.

This past year has been a particular difficult one for us. 2009 brought with it the death of 2 beautiful grandmothers, our oldest child entering Jr. High, a questionable economy, and other issues far too deep and personal to mention in a blog. Let's just say that at one point, we forgot to lean. It happens from time to time to all couples, I suppose. I mean, we can't all live up to Prince Charming and Cinderella. Especially when dealing with homework assignments, jobs, housework, sports practices, coughs, fevers, and a preteen entering puberty. You get lost...it happens...

Recently, Brian and I have been blessed enough to see this shift and see it for what it's worth...an opportunity to learn. We shine the light on each other, supporting each other in our new journeys (my photography and recent vegetarianism, and Brian's amazing weight loss just to name a couple). And here's the best part, we've discovered a little bit about how to stand strong filling up our own cups yet leaning on each other at the same time. We may not always choose when shifts happen...but we can definitely control where the shift leads us. You can choose to learn from it, master it, and yes, rejoice in it even if at first it brought you both to your knees.

After 18yrs, we still hold hands. We explore new ideas. We talk, play, and laugh with our children. And at the end of the day, we eat our dinner, talk and read with the kids, kiss them goodnight, grab a blanket and a glass of wine and sit on the sofa. He puts his feet up and his arm around me and I curl in. It's my favorite time of day.

I love this man with my whole heart. I am so grateful for all we've been through, the good and the not so good. I can truly say, there's no one else I'd rather be leaning with...