On July 18^th 2016, Spencer and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and as I sit to reminisce on all of the things we learned and experienced, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed with feelings of joy and relief. This year was fun, difficult, exciting, fulfilling, and completely exhausting. We both learned a lot about one another and ourselves. It was a year encompassed by growth and bounded by the never-ending theme of what it really means to love selflessly.

For starters, if I had a dollar for every time I was asked ‘how’s married life?’ I would probably have enough money to pay off all of the photo radar tickets I received this year. I’m not kidding; I got a lot of tickets. Jokes aside, during our first few months of marriage, Spencer and I tried our best to give detailed answers about how much we were enjoying being married. But, if I’m being completely honest, the novelty wore off much quicker than we both expected. Soon, we were responding with, ‘good, thanks for asking.’ It’s not that the excitement of marriage had gone away but the circumstances surrounding our marriage made it feel less exciting.

Of course prior to our wedding we both had thoughts on what the first year would be like but after concluding year one, I can say that what we expected and what we experienced were two VERY different things. While we anticipated the ‘sitcom’ style challenges, like being romantically broke or having to clean up after someone for the 100th time, we were blindsided by the emotional exhaustion which stems from many smaller events. We learned quickly that balancing school, work, time with one another, and time apart was hard. We were pleasantly surprised however, by the amount of married couples we knew that were able to relate to our first year struggles.

I’ll admit when I first sat down to write this post, I made a list of what seems like hundreds of memories from this past year. It included the many late night ice cream runs, discovering the best soft drinks in the city, having our very own ‘Whine About It Wednesdays’, building living room forts that stayed up way too long…I could go on forever. We laughed a lot, cried (just me haha), travelled, went to school, moved, decorated our home, sold one car, bought our first furniture, planned trips, played A LOT of board games, and spent way too much money on lattes and books we never had time to read but, gosh did we ever have fun!

Now that a whole year has gone by, I know we can both confidently say that we’re not the same people that stood on the alter 365 days ago. We’re much more communicative, loving, and selfless towards one another. We don’t compete (as much as we used to at least) and we’re constantly reminding one another that we’re on the same team. We argue, but we understand the importance of fighting fair. I like to think that we have a solid grasp on how to balance work and school life all while developing a positive routine together. Not one that will remain the same forever but, one where we both encourage time together and time apart. We’ve recognized the importance in surrounding ourselves with a community of individuals who not only support our marriage but also make it cool. More than anything we have a better sense of who we want to be as individuals and as a couple, where we want to go and the life we envision ourselves building.

One year ago I married my best friend and every day since I’ve been blessed by his undeserving love and encouragement. Even when circumstances are filled with trouble and weakness, I know that our marriage provides the strength to face the worst, together. So, in case you ever thought to ask me, ‘how’s married life?’ I’ll answer in short, being married to Spencer is an incredible adventure and I’m cherishing every moment.

“Our culture says that feelings of love are the basis for actions of love. And of course that can be true. But it is truer to say that actions of love can lead consistently to the feelings of love.”– Tim Keller