My Happiest Memory from 2013
Last year Nicholas and I celebrated ten years of marriage. Believe me when I saw a decade of marriage to this man is worth celebrating so we had our family and friends over for a small ceremony in our front yard and a big party in our backyard. It was such an incredibly evening and is one of my happiest memories from 2013.
My amazing friends at Emerging Media Products put together this video for us, which includes the vows Nicholas and I wrote for each other. I can't watch it without crying and I hope you enjoy it (maybe without the tears).
Today is National Proposal Day. Due to the fact that Nicholas and I didn’t start our first blog until 2003, the story of Nicholas proposing to me in 2002 is one of the few facets of our lives together that hasn’t found its way on to the internet.
Well, no day like today!
I thought there is no better time than in the depths of caring for our brand new baby and THIRD child to remember how it all began.
Recently, I was listening to This American Life. For those of you who don’t listen to This American Life (no judgment but what is WRONG with you!??), every week they choose a theme and put together different stories on that theme. This episode’s theme was break ups. The first story revolved around the particular perfection that are breakup songs. It involved Phil Collins and was really everything that is wonderful about the type of storytelling on This American Life.
Specifically, I learned the story behind one of my favorite songs – breakup or otherwise – of all time Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me.
My first love cheated on me. Repeatedly.
And I went back to him. Repeatedly.
He was my first real boyfriend and had followed me from high school to college. (Mind you, he did not attend the college - just moved to the same town.) I was head over heels in love with him, as only a teenager can be. I truly believed I was going to marry him. Then, I found a love note in his apartment from a sorority sister — not just any sorority sister but a close friend who had taken me under her wing and showered me with affection.
It is a betrayal that still stings eleven years later.
The hard-charging international barrister Amal Alamuddin recently married a movie star and changed her name to Amal Clooney reigniting the age-old feminist debate over whether or not a woman should change her name upon marriage.
My decision to change my name came down to a simple majority vote conducted among my bridesmaids in the car on the way to my rehearsal dinner.
Nicholas and I have been married for eleven years. We work hard. We have two small children. We recently lost a baby. In theory, these should be tough times for our marriage, but they have been just the opposite.
These past two years have been our happiest and most fulfilling as a couple.
My husband is still the man he has always been. He is attentive and caring and intelligent, but he didn’t magically stop doing all the things that annoy me (leaving his shoes around the house, paying too much attention to his iPhone, giggling to his favorite podcasts, this is not a comprehensive list). We still fight and he still hurts my feelings from time to time.
No, Nicholas didn’t change. I did.
A couple of weeks ago the New York Times published research regarding marriages that I found very interesting. I'm clearly not the only one because it quickly rose to the top of the Most Emailed Stories list.
My husband and I have been married for ten years. Not long enough to get to the really good anniversary presents but long enough I wouldn't feel ludicrous offering marriage advice.
And long enough I couldn't help but slightly roll my eyes at the opening sentence of the latest viral post Marriage Isn’t for You by Seth Adams Smith.
Having been married only a year and a half, I've recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn't for me.
Mr. Smith goes on to elaborate that marriage is for the other person. It is a commitment to your spouse – to make them happy, to meet their needs. This commitment is also about your future family and children and creating the best possible environment for them by loving unselfishly and unconditionally.
To that I say, “Bless your heart! Let's check back in five years.”
Sarah Holland
Nicholas and I celebrated twelve years of marriage yesterday. Every year we write in a vow album. The day of our wedding we wrote our vows in a journal and then every year we write a letter to one another on our anniversary. This year for the first time I went back and read all of Nicholas's letters to me over the past 12 years and started thinking about how far we've come and how much we've learned.