On this day ten years ago…

Today is mine and Lea’s 10th wedding anniversary. We were married in the gazebo at Burritt Museum in Huntsville the evening of May 10, 1997.

I’m told it was lovely.

One of my dad’s favorite photos from our wedding album shows me a little off-kilter, leaning on a railing with a big smile on my face. (I think I look like a Sears catalog stooge in that photo, but never mind.) I asked him why he liked it so much, and he said “because it shows you exactly how you weren’t that day” (that is, relaxed and casual).

Writing today, with ten more years of life’s lessons, I’m confident in saying I was as sure about my lady that day as anyone ever is about such things–and yet I was a total mess all day long. I’d had a failed engagement five years earlier. I was a child of divorce with too much firsthand knowledge of what such does to otherwise reasonable people. Perhaps these things contributed gravity. I don’t know.

What I do know is that whenever anyone mentions our wedding to me, they always talk about the chocolate-covered strawberries at the reception, of which I have no memory. I remember introducing our photographer to my mother as Mark Price (his name is Greg Young). I remember Charles hugging me and telling me he loved me, and that was the only time in our 20-year friendship/brotherhood we’ve cried together. I vaguely remember sobbing my vows incoherently. And I remember that our exit music was the throne room music from Star Wars–at the end, when Leia gives Luke and Han their medals for their successful assault on the Death Star and it goes into the credits.

When I consider how I feel about my marriage, there is a persistent and strong duality. I think about the omnipresent laughter stemming from an endless well of private jokes, and it feels like we’re still dating. But when I reflect on how much we’ve grown together and all we’ve experienced and successfully navigated, it feels like a thousand eternities. Doubtless I am a better man for Lea in my life, and I look to the future with content confidence.

What is love if not meeting another’s needs so completely? Do earthly blessings get any better?

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