2 Years

Dear friends,

Rylee likes to claim that she's been begging me to write a post for such a long time. What that sounds like is she asks me everyday and I constantly beg off. What that really means is her way of asking me to write a post is by writing on the blog that she asked me to write a post. Passive aggressive or just passive? Well here you have it hun (and blog world).

Today marks Rylee and I's 2 year wedding anniversary and, though this is a total cliche, it just doesn't feel like its been 2 years, for a lot of reasons. On the one hand, and in a good way, it feels like its been way longer than 2 years. I think in large part that's because of Gemma and how long the past 10 months in particular have felt. Another factor is we dated for such a long time before getting married (8 total years together this December) that the last 2 years just feel like a part of the journey. But I think the biggest reason for this is because the majority of these 2 years were spent in a new place doing new things together and we don't have anything else to compare that to. The time we spent in Boston was not only our first time living together, it was the first time in 4 years that we had lived in the same place, so everything about Boston was totally unique to itself. We don't have any other 2 years to measure it against. While I can look back on the rest of my quarter century on this planet and say "wow time has flown," the last 2 years together have really seemed to make up so much more of my life than that. Boston wasn't just our first place together, it was our first home and I think the fact that 2 years feels like a long time bears testament to how settled and comfortable we really were there. Shout out to all of our friends up north who made that home a reality for us.

On the other hand, and also in a good way, it doesn't feel like it could possibly have been 2 years already! It is incredible to look back on August 9, 2014 and see how much it still feels like that just happened. That evening itself is still so fresh in my mind and we talk about it so much that it really is still alive in our memory. And that's not just nostalgia. I think both the wedding and the reception had so much of our own effort and personality poured into them that they really still continue to impact us today. (Thank you to everyone who helped create those memories with us) But beyond all that this anniversary feels momentous in a transitionary kind of way. The first wedding anniversary is supposed to feel new and like you've barely been married because it is precisely both of those things. And maybe by the fifth or the tenth anniversary we will start to feel like we are celebrating something with a truly impressive longevity (not to say 2 years isn't impressive or that we won't look back from 40 years and laugh that we were so thrilled with reaching 5). But here at year 2 we're just starting to make that transition and turn from newlyweds (which we're certainly not anymore) to seasoned veterans (which we are CERTAINLY not yet). And as we're touching that first milestone on the way to 5, 10, 20, 40, the kind of milestones that whole rooms will applaud at weddings down the road, I honestly can't believe how the time has flown. If this is how fast 2 years can go by, then I know I'm going to look back from 40 and wish time would have slowed down just a bit, just for us.

Rylee and I have a tradition (which might actually be a tradition she has with Ryan that I just stole...oops) that when someone gets a new drink they propose a toast. I come up with a toast this time, she comes up with one next time. Well tonight we went out for a special anniversary dinner (thanks Shannon for watching the little monster) and both came up with a toast to celebrate the occasion. I really think that they are a fitting pair for capturing the brevity and longevity that we have already experienced and know lies before us in the years to come, summing up everything I've been feeling all day: "To the last 2 years, which is really the last 8." "To getting married young and having a long 'the rest of my life' to spend with you"