love

2 Comments July 15, 2014 drworobec

Today is my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married eight years, and it feels like a lifetime and only a minute all rolled into one.

July 15th, 2006.

The traditional anniversary gift for eight years is pottery or bronze. Instead, we got our kitchen backsplash tiled. Point being… life happens, priorities shift, reality changes. Our reality is two small kids, two jobs, a house, and a busy life. And there’s love. Lots and lots of love.

We went out for dinner this weekend to celebrate, as we do in and around every July 15th, and talked about how much has changed for us in the last eight years. Some changes big, some changes small, some changes awful, some changes amazing. All changes, nonetheless. How is it possible that our lives can look so differently now, after less than a decade?

We were married on a beautiful cliff just outside of my hometown in Sundre, Alberta, overlooking the Rocky mountains and the Red Deer river below. At our wedding ceremony, our minister spoke about how a marriage is like a river- always changing, sometimes surging, sometimes receding. As long as the streams feeding the river continue to end up together, the river will continue to flourish. How true that has been.

My husband and I met on a blind date, and were engaged less than a year later; we went from love-at-first-sight to fairytale romance very quickly. Recently, I found an excerpt from a poem he gave to me soon after we met, when we were caught up in the romance and adventure of our new head-over-heels relationship:

After A While (Veronica Shoftshall, 1971)

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul.

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open.

With the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground it too uncertain for plans.

After a while you learn than even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure.

That you really are strong,

And that you really do have worth.

When he first read me this poem so many years ago, it made me feel safe. And as I read it now, so many years later, I still feel safe. Safe to be myself. Safe to know that this is it, that this is meant to be. Safe to know that this deep-down-in-my-bones-I-know-it-to-be-true is one in a million. For eight years, and eighty more.

xo.

Leave a comment April 22, 2014 drworobec

You know those times in life when everything seems to be piling on, coming all at once, one thing after another? We’re in the middle of one of those times. A few curveballs thrown our way, some extra stressors, and more than a few tears shed. Here we are, amidst the ups and downs of life, the ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys. Things will calm down and ‘normal’ will return. But Wednesday was a particularly trying day….. until Sarah happened.

Have I told you about Sarah? She’s my sister. Well, not technically a sister; she’s actually a sister-like friend who has been beside me through all things life and love since we were twelve. For ten years now, she’s lived in Washington, DC, and I in Burlington, Ontario. Ten years being more than 700kms apart, and I can honestly say that our friendship hasn’t changed much. We don’t see each other as often, but we’re in touch almost daily, and when we get together it seems we were never apart.

On Wednesday morning, I came home with my kids and found a package at our front door. Addressed to my daughter, sent by Auntie Sarah, we raced inside and my toddler excitedly opened up her treasure. And there, inside the box, was a fuzzy pink Build-A-Bear…. wearing glasses. The note explained that Casey and her new bear can wear their new glasses together; the empathy of a stuffed animal. For those keeping track, my 2-year-old daughter has just been diagnosed with amblyopia, and will require glasses and daily eye-patching to ‘teach’ her left eye to function. But Sarah happened. She’s a plane-ride away and she managed to feel my worry, to support my daughter, to help us out, to make me better.

How do I explain to her the power of her gesture? How can I convey what that meant to me, what it meant for Casey? The tenderness she shows my children warms my heart like only family can. Sarah’s currently pregnant with her first baby, expecting her little boy to arrive in June. It’s true what they say about a mother’s love, you know… how it’s a love like no other. She will feel that in June. And when she’s having a rough day and emotions are running high, I hope I’ll be able to return the favour. Maybe then she’ll really understand how much it meant that Sarah happened.

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