19 years. 19 years ago he and I said “I do.” We had stars in our eyes, dreams in our hearts and plans that seemed simple.

We were young. And in love. The kind of love that feels reckless and delicious and perfect. The kind of love that you feel from the tip of your head to the soles of your feet, with a resounding thud somewhere deep in your soul. The kind of love that makes everything else fuzzy.

Saying yes to him was easy. Planning a wedding, showing up and walking down the aisle, was easy. Saying “I do” was easy. Honeymooning in Maine was easy. Learning to live together and move with one another’s rhythm was easy. Juggling grad school and marriage and work was easy. Learning the steps to this new dance of ours was relatively easy. There was a lot of easy in those days.

Or maybe the fog of being in love made everything seem easy.

Easy lasted a good long while.

And then hard set in.

I didn’t know how hard marriage would be.

I didn’t know that marriage would take so much work. Unbelievably difficult work. The kind of work that requires self-reflection and a choice to change. The kind of work that requires selfless compromise, even on the days when you want to throw a tantrum and demand things go your way. The kind of work that asks you to look long and hard in the mirror and know that it’s only you that you can control. The kind of work that begs you to offer grace and forgiveness and acceptance.

I didn’t know any of that.

There were a lot of other things that I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that dealing with our own baggage would complicate marriage issues…or worse, that baggage left undealt with could end up being deal breakers. I didn’t know that division would come so easily over such tiny details, like where to spend Easter or how to celebrate birthdays or how to budget for every unforeseeable thing. I didn’t know that personality differences that once seemed so complementary would one day become the rift that threatened to divide us.

I didn’t know that we would make a choice early on to live somewhere I didn’t plan to stay. That I would spend years building up quiet resentment over my environment. Or that I would one day feel restless in what I felt called to do. And that one day that resentment, that restlessness would boil over.

I didn’t know that we would have four amazing children. Four vibrant, demanding children who would come into the world, completely dependent on us in a way that would challenge everything we thought we knew. I didn’t know, either, that we would conceive three more only to lose them in utero. I didn’t know that losing someone you’ve never met could possibly be so hard and that sometimes a shared loss has to be walked alone. I didn’t know that that kind of grieving could take such a toll on marriage.

I didn’t know that marriage would require giving grace, again and again, or that grace would one day be so hard to give.

I didn’t know that sometimes learning to define myself and set boundaries would push our relationship to its limits or that changing for all the wrong reasons could also push our relationship to its limits. I didn’t know that my peace craving Earthy type would clash so vehemently against his justice craving Wood type. Or that sometimes we wouldn’t be able to be calm enough to see the other side. Or that sometimes we would choose to not see the other side. Out of sheer frustration.

I didn’t know that sometimes you have to stand your ground and watch things crumble only to then reach out and rebuild what appears destroyed.

I didn’t know that I would one day see the worst of him, the ugliest, the most raw…or that he would one day see that side of me stripped bare, as well. I didn’t know that I could see that and still love…or be seen like that and still BE loved.

Turns out this marriage thing isn’t easy. Turns out that being in love and choosing to love for the long haul are two very different things. Turns out that 19 years has been full of hard lessons, but 19 years has also been full of grace and forgiveness and acceptance. I don’t know what the next 19 years hold. Or where this whirlwind of a life will dump us, but I do know that it’s okay. Grace is abundant. Forgiveness is necessary. Acceptance is a power unto itself.

I also know that my heart still goes pitter patter when he walks in the room and that sometimes, it’s that feeling of being in love that makes the difficult journey completely worth it.