Happy Anniversary, Chris! Two years feels like a real milestone. As Chris said, “We have an associates degree in marriage!” That’s enough to get, like, jobs…
But anyway, we noticed a distinct ease into marital harmony right around our first anniversary. That could’ve had to do with several things that all happened around that same time: 1. Chris finished the Primary phase of flight training, meaning he passed the initial weed-out (with flying colors!) giving him his first breather. 2. We also found out our options for the first time with any certainty when Chris se
lected helicopters. That relieved a lot of stress and also prompted us to root into our community, specifically Officer’s Christian Fellowship (OCF), with more dedication. 3. My job went from part time to full time after six months of talk, giving me something to dislike and generally making Chris a hero. But I’d like to think it was just because we put all that time and effort into arguing about everything until we got it all right. 🙂
You might say our second year of marriage has been characterized by real advances. We’ve seen huge improvements in our communication and understanding each other, especially since we made it a priority to pray about it together most nights. Shocking! We had our hopes realized when we selected Japan as our first duty station and moved to sunny Jacksonville, FL to complete our training. This curriculum is not as rapid as the pre-wing curriculum, so we’ve had MUCH more daily face time. It’s so wonderful to be able to chat over dinner AND dessert and even have a glass of wine on the balcony
or something. Studying still happens, but not every single moment. Aaahhh. Chris gets more time to read the news online, I get more time with him home and not studying, the cats get more attention and tossing…everyone’s happy. Maybe not the cats…. 🙂
Our third year of marriage promises both adventure and strain as we move to Tokyo and have been told Chris will be deployed the majority of our first year here. The vast majority. 🙁 But that’s another blog post.
I gave Chris a replica of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum to symbolize the miraculous advances in our own languages coming together 😉 and he gave me a locket with a wedding photo inside. It’s so perfect—I told him months ago I wanted a locket before he deployed, and he found the perfect combination of the romance of it I’d envisioned and a necklace I can realistically wear overseas all the time if I want to. As my mom pointed out, interpreting our desires into reality is a big part of the gift. This is a very happy anniversary indeed!