Day 8 of the Ralph Waldo Emerson “Self-Reliance” project. Click here for my project archives.
Five years ago I had just gotten married to a man who proposed after we’d known each other only ten days and within three months we were married on an enchanted bridge underneath Granada’s Alhambra.
Note to my 2006 self: Five years from now, you’re still together, you will love him so much more than you do now and so much more than you ever imagined you could love anybody. He’s not going to give up on you or this marriage when the going gets tough; he’s just as stubborn as you. The cherry on top is that he’s given you what you always dreamed of: the chance to be a writer. Go easy on yourself and on him.
A note to my 2016 self? Who knows. Here’s hoping you’ll be celebrating your ten-year anniversary with the man who has made your dreams come true. You got matching tattoos when you first married, maybe it’s time for some new art. Make sure to marvel over the fact that he proposed after you’d known each other for only ten days. Instinct is a most awesome thing.
I like the concept of this post, and your story even more. Congrats on sifting through your life through the five years’ past and five years’ future lenses, and getting to what’s most important. Yay!
Thank you, Linda! That’s the “problem” with being an expat/Third Culture Kid, we have to rely on the people in our lives rather than the idea of home.
True, and it is not to be minimalized. Home is a concept that many people take for granted and others long for. But I do believe we begin to see how the people in our lives can really help make our ‘home’. Sometimes focusing on what we have and not what we feel we don’t have makes all the difference.
I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
That is SO ROMANTIC!!! What an amazing couple! LOVE IT! and I love your wedding dress!! 🙂
<3 Janice! The dress! Yes! I somehow managed to find the only 1960s vintage dress in all of Spain. The shopkeeper said his wife bought it when she was in San Francisco and it had been sitting on that shelf for years. I paid 18 euros for it! The zip broke on the day of the wedding, but nothing a little TLC and white thread my mom couldn't fix. 😉
It took us a few years, but I do agree that we have become a super-strong couple. xoxo