Breathe.

In the middle of all of the high stress, busy, busy, busy of our lives, Massey and I have had a phenomenal realization.

We haven't really had time to process that we bought a house, and so last week when our thoughts started going down that path late into the night, we didn't stop them.

And here's what we realized: this house is the first time in our collective life that anything, any one factor, has been even remotely nailed down. Yes, things will break, there will be projects galore, but the fact that we have a family home for an indefinite amount of time? That won't change.

For the last four years, we have been living strictly in survivor mode. When we met, I had just been through life trauma (to put it lightly), and so we were in survivor mode. The next year when we officially moved in together, there were more Debbie Downers and busy bodies in our life then there were cheerleaders. We were in survivor mode. Then there was a pregnancy. And a wedding. All before the end of my junior year. Survivor mode. A summer apart. A pregnancy apart for an internship in DC. Survivor mode. A semester off, daycare, and graduation (for us both). Survivor mode. A failed housing contract, a rocky start to a new job, 80 hours (at least) a week on the job, a one year old, and renting from my bosses. Survivor mode.

How we made it, we have no idea. Purely by the grace of God.

No wonder we've been snipping at each other. No wonder we've had frosty patches. No wonder we've both pondered life in painful ways.

Sometimes you fight so much to survive, that you start forgetting where your heart is. It's easier to put a wall around all of the essentials then to maintain grace and openness in relationships.

Realizing this has been a breath of fresh air--and a simultaneous breath of thanksgiving and gratitude.

Thanksgiving for the family who supports us.

The daughter who loves us.

The God who cares deeply for us.

And above all, a gratitude for the gift of marriage. Without the...commitment of marriage, or the boundaries, borders, etc. of marriage, how many times would we have flown to the exit sign rather then to our various corners to sulk? How many times over would we have said, "enough is enough"? How many times would we have picked ourselves over our family? How many times would we have decided that simply love was not enough, and that by golly you're driving me freaking out of my mind crazy (too many to count)? But marriage? That lifelong commitment? Right now that seems to be enough.

March 10, 2007

So now is our chance to breathe. We still have just as many balls in the air, and we are still merely trying to survive, but we're doing it together--from our core foundation. Our family's nerve center. Our home.