In just a few days time my husband and I will celebrate 25 years of marriage.
Twenty-five years!
We met, married and moved to Australia in the last century.
That sounds odd to write.
Nothing was ‘on demand’.
There were no smart phones, we had dial up internet on our home computer, and Lego was on the brink of collapse.
When you think about 25 years as an age – it doesn’t sound very old or very many years.
Yet, when you think of it in terms of marriage, it seems like an eternity, and I mean that in a good way.
But you have to work at it.
We’ve had arguments – usually about nothing important, we’ve had sorrow and loss.
We’ve had (and continue to have) health issues, but we help each other.
We always talk about things and we do things together.
We laugh, a lot, to the point of tears.
We’re honest with each other.
We’re a team.
In fact we often jokingly refer to ourselves as Team Lund.
When we first lived together we often described things in terms of ‘mine’ and ‘yours’.
It was a while before they became ‘our’, and we merged our record collections.
We love travelling together and exploring new places.
We have a knack of spotting the most ridiculous things and have a rule that you have to stop and take a photo, there and then.
We build Lego and enjoy music, theatre and film – together.
We’ve supported each other as we’ve changed jobs and tried new ventures.
Life is a massive journey together, but it’s not about getting to any one place.
It’s about every step you take, every day.
It’s one of the things I love most about practising mindfulness.
It helps to remind us to look up and see each other, to notice if the other person is okay.
To listen, and really hear what they say.
To appreciate the random phone call he just made to me to share something funny, despite being on a tight deadline.
It’s those small, but precious moments.
I can’t wait to celebrate our anniversary next week.
To celebrate each other and what we’ve achieved together, and look forward to hopefully many, many more years.
Happy Anniversary!
Ann 🙏